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lk2fireone (0)
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| 04-12-18 03:34pm - 2446 days | #405 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User  Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump has assailed Comey as a "showboat" and a "liar." How can the President of the United States be surrounded by such losers? Does he not have the right to fire people who can't do their jobs? Maybe Congress should vote him a bigger salary, so the President can hire good guys who will serve him loyally. -------- -------- In new book, Comey says Trump 'untethered to truth' Associated Press CHAD DAY and JONATHAN LEMIRE,Associated Press 44 minutes ago WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey blasts President Donald Trump as unethical and "untethered to truth" and calls his leadership of the country "ego driven and about personal loyalty" in a forthcoming book. Comey reveals new details about his interactions with Trump and his own decision-making in handling the Hillary Clinton email investigation before the 2016 election. He casts Trump as a mafia boss-like figure who sought to blur the line between law enforcement and politics and tried to pressure him regarding his investigation into Russian election interference. The book adheres closely to Comey's public testimony and written statements about his contacts with the president during the early days of the administration and his growing concern about the president's integrity. It also includes strikingly personal jabs at Trump that appear likely to irritate the president. The 6-foot-8 Comey describes Trump as shorter than he expected with a "too long" tie and "bright white half-moons" under his eyes that he suggests came from tanning goggles. He also says he made a conscious effort to check the president's hand size, saying it was "smaller than mine, but did not seem unusually so." The book, "A Higher Loyalty," is to be released next week. The Associated Press purchased a copy this week. Trump fired Comey in May 2017, setting off a scramble at the Justice Department that led to the appointment of Robert Mueller as special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation. Mueller's probe has expanded to include whether Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey, an idea the president denies. Trump has assailed Comey as a "showboat" and a "liar." Comey's account lands at a particularly sensitive moment for Trump and the White House. Officials there describe Trump as enraged over a recent FBI raid of his personal lawyer's home and office, raising the prospect that he could fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller, or try to shut down the probe on his own. The Republican National Committee is poised to lead the pushback effort against Comey, who is set to do a series of interviews to promote the book, by launching a website and supplying surrogates with talking points that question the former director's credibility. Trump has said he fired Comey because of his handling of the FBI's investigation into his Clinton's email practices. Trump used the investigation as a cudgel in the campaign and repeatedly said Clinton should be jailed for using a personal email system while serving as secretary of state. Democrats, on the other hand, have accused Comey of politicizing the investigation, and Clinton herself has said it hurt her election prospects. Comey writes that he regrets his approach and some of the wording he used in his July 2016 press conference in which he announced the decision not to prosecute Clinton. But he says he believes he did the right thing by going before the cameras and making his statement, noting that the Justice Department had done so in other high profile cases. Every person on the investigative team, Comey writes, found that there was no prosecutable case against Clinton and that the FBI didn't find that she lied under its questioning. He also reveals for the first time that the U.S. government had unverified classified information that he believes could have been used to cast doubt on Attorney General Loretta Lynch's independence in the Clinton probe. While Comey does not outline the details of the information — and says he didn't see indications of Lynch inappropriately influencing the investigation — he says it worried him that the material could be used to attack the integrity of the probe and the FBI's independence. Comey's book will be heavily scrutinized by the president's legal team looking for any inconsistencies between it and his public testimony, under oath, before Congress. They will be looking to impeach Comey's credibility as a key witness in Mueller's obstruction investigation, which the president has cast as a political motivated witch hunt. He provides new details of his firing. He writes that then-Homeland Security secretary John Kelly — now Trump's chief of staff — offered to quit out of a sense of disgust as to how Comey was dismissed, as well as his first encounter with Trump, a January 2017 briefing at Trump Tower in New York City. Kelly has been increasingly marginalized in the White House and the president has mused to confidantes about firing the chief of staff. Comey also writes extensively about his first meeting with Trump after his election. Others in the meeting included Vice President Mike Pence, Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus, Michael Flynn, who would become national security adviser, and incoming press secretary, Sean Spicer. Comey was also joined by NSA Director Mike Rogers, CIA Director John Brennan and DNI Director James Clapper. After Clapper briefed the team on the intelligence community's findings of Russian election interference, Comey said he was taken aback by what the Trump team didn't ask. "They were about to lead a country that had been attacked by a foreign adversary, yet they had no questions about what the future Russian threat might be," Comey writes. Instead, he writes, they launched into a strategy session about how to "spin what we'd just told them" for the public. | |
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| 04-12-18 06:17am - 2446 days | #404 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-special-...lease-090020791.html Fire the special counsel. Please. Matt Bai 4 hours ago Let me put it to you this way, Mr. President. Who are you going to listen to — the voice of the stable genius inside your head, or the timid voices of experience, the ones that said you’d never win? You know what you want to do. Just do it already. Oh sure, all the sour-faced pundits are warning of a national crisis if you follow through. All those bed-wetting Republicans on the Hill are counseling patience and caution. Your senior staff is glued to their Twitter feeds, praying you won’t hit Send on something you can’t take back. But they’re not the ones who sit in that swivel chair, are they. They never in their lives registered so much as a blip in the Nielsen ratings. Paul Ryan’s so smart that you gave him the biggest tax cut in the history of civilization and he still can’t hold his seat in Podunk, Wis. Go on, Mr. President. Fire Bob Mueller. Please. Don’t stop there, either — fire the rest of them, too. Sessions will be useless. That Boy Scout Rosenstein won’t have your back, either. There must be something in the halls of the Justice Department that causes people to suddenly grow a conscience, like some goiter sprouting on the soul. Burn it down, Mr. President. Do what you really came here to do. Let’s see how those Ivy League lawyers like taking orders from Attorney General Laura Ingraham and her new deputy, Michael Cohen. You said it yourself: This latest raid on Cohen, your most trusted personal lackey, was an attack on America. I couldn’t agree more. The first image that jumped into my mind when I heard the news was Pearl Harbor. Many years from now, our grandchildren will mark the day of the Stormy Daniels Raid with little shoebox dioramas of federal prosecutors marching into Rockefeller Center. What were they really after, anyway? Payoffs to paramours? Campaign finance violations? No, Mueller’s aiming higher than that. Prosecutors sometimes talk about “tickling the wire,” by which they mean purposely freaking out witnesses who might be under electronic surveillance. You rattle the dumpster a little, and then you sit back and listen as the rats inside panic. My guess is that Mueller is onto the real stuff now: loans from Moscow laundered through European banks, clumsy backchannel connections to your meathead son-in-law, bullying from the Oval Office that might cross the line into outright obstruction. He’s crossed the moat and breached the castle now. He’s rummaging through the Hall of Armor. And what he’s doing now is goading you. Tickling the wire. Pushing your buttons to see just how reckless your cronies can get. You and I know who Mueller is, Mr. President. Born in Manhattan, schooled at St. Paul’s and Princeton. He played high school hockey with John Kerry. He even looks like John Kerry. He might be John Kerry, for all we know. The newspaper profiles never fail to mention that Mueller joined the Marines, fought in Vietnam, got himself covered head to toe with medals for valor. Meanwhile, you described your own version of combat, after all those deferments, as having dodged venereal diseases while hopping from one bed to the next. Can’t anyone around here take a joke? No, Mueller isn’t just a prosecutor; he’s the stand-in for all the bluebloods and public service types who never respected you, who never thought you belonged, who always thought you too coarse and outer-borough, too much of a carnival barker, to join their clubs or sit on their boards. He’s trying to destroy you, Mr. President. He thinks you’re beneath the office. And if you’re going to stop him, what better time to do it than now, just as Jim Comey’s big memoir hits the virtual shelves? You don’t need me to tell you what getting rid of Mueller would do to the Comey Sanctification Tour. This is what you’re better at than anyone alive — commandeering the news cycle. This isn’t hard. Look at all the people you’ve already fired. Priebus, Flynn, Tillerson, Price, McMaster — the list goes on. Of course, you didn’t actually fire them, eye to eye. That’s something you only do on TV, when people are watching and you get to humiliate some wannabe TV star. Your style is more to let them know on Twitter, or in the fake news. Which is why I’ve theorized that you’re a man of show business, not of action. I’ve said that other world leaders sense your insecurity and walk all over you. I’ve never bought the storyline about you as an aspiring tyrant because, when you get down to it, I don’t think you really have the steel. So prove me wrong. Reprise Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre. Find your Robert Bork. Because here’s the thing, Mr. President: All these responsible people frantically warning of a constitutional crisis if you do this — they’re afraid. They don’t think the institutions of American democracy and jurisprudence are strong enough now to withstand the assault. They think the Republican Party you’ve annexed will prostrate itself in your presence, as it has for the entire last year. Even more than that, they don’t believe in the voters. Their faith is shaken. They fear that Americans are so angry at the system, so dimwitted and disillusioned, that we’ll accept anything that comes disguised as anti-elitism. They worry that you’ll win, and America’s claim to being a nation of laws will be lost. I don’t. If I’m being straight with you, I think firing Mueller is your Waterloo. And this kind of clear-cut crisis may be exactly what we need. I think there are more than enough Republicans who genuinely believe in the bedrock principles of American government (and, not for nothing, who can see what your leadership is about to do to them in the midterm elections), and a solid majority of patriotic voters who won’t stand by and watch another president try to strong-arm the judicial system. I think trying to shut down the special counsel and seize control of the Justice Department will be the thing that brings this entire Legoland of an administration crashing down on itself. So enough bluster, Mr. President. It’s time to walk the walk. Because I’m pretty sure that all you’ll have left, when Mueller and Rosenstein and Sessions are all back at law firms basking in the public’s admiration, are enough unshakable, reactionary supporters to just about fill a park in Charlottesville. Everyone else in your party will have moved on to President Pence. | |
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| 04-12-18 05:58am - 2446 days | #403 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@Loki, Sometimes it's better to take the higher ground. Easier said than done. But the Internet seems to breed insults. That are better ignored.  | |
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| 04-12-18 12:16am - 2446 days | #399 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
$30,000 rumor? Tabloid paid for, spiked, salacious Trump tip JAKE PEARSON and JEFF HORWITZ JAKE PEARSON and JEFF HORWITZ 1 hour 5 minutes ago NEW YORK (AP) — Eight months before the company that owns the National Enquirer paid $150,000 to a former Playboy Playmate who claimed she'd had an affair with Donald Trump, the tabloid's parent made a $30,000 payment to a less famous individual: a former doorman at one of the real estate mogul's New York City buildings. As it did with the ex-Playmate, the Enquirer signed the ex-doorman to a contract that effectively prevented him from going public with a juicy tale that might hurt Trump's campaign for president. The payout to the former Playmate, Karen McDougal, stayed a secret until the Wall Street Journal published a story about it days before Election Day. Since then curiosity about that deal has spawned intense media coverage and, this week, helped prompt the FBI to raid the hotel room and offices of Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. The story of the ex-doorman, Dino Sajudin, hasn't been told until now. The Associated Press confirmed the details of the Enquirer's payment through a review of a confidential contract and interviews with dozens of current and former employees of the Enquirer and its parent company, American Media Inc. Sajudin got $30,000 in exchange for signing over the rights, "in perpetuity," to a rumor he'd heard about Trump's sex life — that the president had fathered an illegitimate child with an employee at Trump World Tower, a skyscraper he owns near the United Nations. The contract subjected Sajudin to a $1 million penalty if he disclosed either the rumor or the terms of the deal to anyone. Cohen, the longtime Trump attorney, acknowledged to the AP that he had discussed Sajudin's story with the magazine when the tabloid was working on it. He said he was acting as a Trump spokesman when he did so and denied knowing anything beforehand about the Enquirer payment to the ex-doorman. The parallel between the ex-Playmate's and the ex-doorman's dealings with the Enquirer raises new questions about the roles that the Enquirer and Cohen may have played in protecting Trump's image during a hard-fought presidential election. Prosecutors are probing whether Cohen broke banking or campaign laws in connection with AMI's payment to McDougal and a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels that Cohen said he paid out of his own pocket. Federal investigators have sought communications between Cohen, American Media's chief executive and the Enquirer's top editor, the New York Times reported. Cohen's lawyer has called the raids "inappropriate and unnecessary." American Media hasn't said whether federal authorities have sought information from it, but said this week that it would "comply with any and all requests that do not jeopardize or violate its protected sources or materials pursuant to our First Amendment rights." The White House didn't respond to questions seeking comment. On Wednesday, an Enquirer sister publication, RadarOnline, published details of the payment and the rumor that Sajudin was peddling. The website wrote that the Enquirer spent four weeks reporting the story but ultimately decided it wasn't true. The company only released Sajudin from his contract after the 2016 election amid inquiries from the Journal about the payment. The site noted that the AP was among a group of publications that had been investigating the ex-doorman's tip. During AP's reporting, AMI threatened legal action over reporters' efforts to interview current and former employees and hired the New York law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, which challenged the accuracy of the AP's reporting. Asked about the payment last summer, Dylan Howard, the Enquirer's top editor and an AMI executive, said he made the payment to secure the former Trump doorman's exclusive cooperation because the tip, if true, would have sold "hundreds of thousands" of magazines. Ultimately, he said the information "lacked any credibility," so he spiked the story on those merits. "Unfortunately...Dino Sajudin is one fish that swam away," Howard told RadarOnline on Wednesday. But four longtime Enquirer staffers directly familiar with the episode challenged Howard's version of events. They said they were ordered by top editors to stop pursuing the story before completing potentially promising reporting threads. They said the publication didn't pursue standard Enquirer reporting practices, such as exhaustive stake-outs or tabloid tactics designed to prove paternity. In 2008, the Enquirer helped bring down presidential hopeful John Edwards in part by digging through a dumpster and retrieving material to do a DNA test that indicated he had fathered a child with a mistress, according to a former staffer. The woman at the center of the rumor about Trump denied emphatically to the AP last August that she'd ever had an affair with Trump, saying she had no idea the Enquirer had paid Sajudin and pursued his tip. The AP has not been able to determine if the rumor is true and is not naming the woman. "This is all fake," she said. "I think they lost their money." The Enquirer staffers, all with years of experience negotiating source contracts, said the abrupt end to reporting combined with a binding, seven-figure penalty to stop the tipster from talking to anyone led them to conclude that this was a so-called "catch and kill" — a tabloid practice in which a publication pays for a story to never run, either as a favor to the celebrity subject of the tip or as leverage over that person. One former Enquirer reporter, who was not involved in the Sajudin reporting effort, expressed skepticism that the company would pay for the tip and not publish. "AMI doesn't go around cutting checks for $30,000 and then not using the information," said Jerry George, a reporter and senior editor for nearly three decades at AMI before his layoff in 2013. The company said that AMI's publisher, David Pecker, an unabashed Trump supporter, had not coordinated its coverage with Trump associates or taken direction from Trump. It acknowledged discussing the former doorman's tip with Trump's representatives, which it described as "standard operating procedure in stories of this nature." The Enquirer staffers, like many of the dozens of other current and former AMI employees interviewed by the AP in the past year, spoke on condition of anonymity. All said AMI required them to sign nondisclosure agreements barring them from discussing internal editorial policy and decision-making. Though sometimes dismissed by mainstream publications, the Enquirer's history of breaking legitimate scoops about politicians' personal lives — including its months-long Pulitzer Prize-contending coverage of presidential candidate Edwards' affair — is a point of pride in its newsroom. During the 2016 presidential campaign, the Enquirer published a string of allegations against Trump's rivals, such as stories claiming Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was a bisexual "secret sex freak" and was kept alive only by a "narcotics cocktail." Stories attacking Trump rivals or promoting Trump's campaign often bypassed the paper's normal fact-checking process, according to two people familiar with campaign-era copy. The tabloid made its first-ever endorsement by officially backing Trump for the White House. With just over a week before Election Day, Howard, the top editor, appeared on Alex Jones' InfoWars program by phone, telling listeners that the choice at the ballot box was between "the Clinton crime family" or someone who will "break down the borders of the establishment." Howard said the paper's coverage was bipartisan, citing negative stories it published about Ben Carson during the Republican presidential primaries. In a statement last summer, Howard said the company doesn't take editorial direction "from anyone outside AMI," and said Trump has never been an Enquirer source. The company has said reader surveys dictate its coverage and that many of its customers are Trump supporters. The company has said it paid McDougal, the former Playboy Playmate, to be a columnist for an AMI-published fitness magazine, not to stay silent. McDougal has since said that she regrets signing the non-disclosure agreement and is currently suing to get out of it. Pecker has denied burying negative stories about Trump, but acknowledged to the New Yorker last summer that McDougal's contract had effectively silenced her. "Once she's part of the company, then on the outside she can't be bashing Trump and American Media," Pecker said. In the tabloid world purchasing information is not uncommon, and the Enquirer routinely pays sources. As a general practice, however, sources agree to be paid for their tips only upon publication. George, the longtime former reporter and editor, said the $1 million penalty in Sajudin's agreement was larger than anything he had seen in his Enquirer career. "If your intent is to get a story from the source, there's no upside to paying upfront," said George, who sometimes handled catch-and-kill contracts related to other celebrities. Paying upfront was not the Enquirer's usual practice because it would have been costly and endangered the source's incentive to cooperate, he said. After initially calling the Enquirer's tip line, Sajudin signed a boilerplate contract with the Enquirer, agreeing to be an anonymous source and be paid upon publication. The Enquirer dispatched reporters to pursue the story both in New York and in California. The tabloid also sent a polygraph expert to administer a lie detection test to Sajudin in a hotel near his Pennsylvania home. Sajudin passed the polygraph, which tested how he learned of the rumor. One week later, Sajudin signed an amended agreement, this one paying him $30,000 immediately and subjecting him to the $1 million penalty if he shopped around his information. | |
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| 04-12-18 12:07am - 2446 days | #398 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The truth is, I do not have a basic understanding of politics, or political history. But I'm amazed at how often stories of lies, petty grabs for money, large grabs for money, etc. are being published in the news by national and state officials. Arnold Schwarzenegger was a movie star, and a businessman. But he didn't have massive stories of corruption while he was governor. The news came out about his fathering a child outside of his marriage. But he didn't have hordes of flunkeys paying bribes to bury his scandals. And he admitted the child (or teenager) was his. But Trump and his officials lie, and lie, and lie. That's Trump's style. Trump really needs a straight doctor to put him on the proper medication. Otherwise, he could start a war we don't really need. | |
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| 04-11-18 10:56pm - 2446 days | #396 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Pruitt and Trump and other Trump officials use lies to justify spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money. For private plane rides, etc. While they criticize the government for wasteful spending. I've never read so many news articles/editorials about the government officials unethical behavior in any previous administration. Graft, unethical behavior is nothing new. But the Trump administration is the worst I've ever seen. And the most callous. The EPA is supposed to protect the health of US citizens. But they've lowered the standards for pollution, saving big business millions of dollars, and increasing the health risks of citizens. | |
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| 04-11-18 10:39pm - 2446 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
S. Korean kills neighbour's dog, invites him to share meat AFP AFP 19 hours ago Seoul (South Korea) (AFP) - A South Korean farmer killed and cooked a neighbour's barking dog before inviting its unsuspecting owner to join him for a dog-meat dinner, police said Wednesday, in a case that has sparked online outrage. The 62-year-old unnamed man confessed to the crime after another neighbour tipped off the pet owner's family. He claimed he was so irritated by the dog's constant barking that he threw a stone at the two-year-old Welsh Corgi, resulting in the animal losing consciousness. "Only after the dog passed out, he claims, he strangled the animal and cooked it," a detective in the southern city of Pyeongtaek told AFP. "The man then invited his neighbours to share the meal, including the father of the dog-owning family", he said. Dog meat has long been a part of South Korean cuisine. But consumption has declined as South Koreans increasingly embrace the idea of dogs as pets instead of livestock, with eating them now something of a taboo among younger generations. The case came to light when a daughter of the family this week published an online plea calling for public support to ensure that the offender be punished sternly. A petition has so far gained almost 15,000 signatures. "We had been all around the town, handing out leaflets containing the dog's picture, phone number and rewards of one million won ($940), in order to find the missing dog", the daughter told AFP by phone, asking for her family's name to be kept anonymous. "When I reached the man's house, which is just three doors down from ours, he expressed sympathy, promising to let us know if he found the dog". At that time, however, the farmer was hiding the dog, either alive or dead, in his barn, she said. The following day, the suspect visited her father, drank with him and consoled him over the missing dog. "He even invited neighbours to come share the dog meat, including my father who did not accept the invitation as he is a non-dog meat eater", she said. As many as one million dogs are still consumed in South Korea each year, with the greasy red meat -- which is invariably boiled for tenderness -- believed to increase energy. Activists have stepped up campaigns to ban dog consumption. Under a newly strengthened law, animal abusers face up to two years in prison or 20 million won ($18,700) in fines. | |
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| 04-11-18 09:52pm - 2446 days | #394 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The EPA just fired an official whose report undermined Scott Pruitt's justification for expensive security April 10, 2018 Molly Riley-Pool/Getty Images The Environmental Protection Agency says it's a complete coincidence that it fired a career staffer who signed off on a report contradicting claims that EPA head Scott Pruitt has received death threats on the same day Senate Democrats cited that assessment as evidence that the EPA had no reason to spend millions on increased security for Pruitt. Until Tuesday, Mario Caraballo was the deputy associate administrator of EPA's Office of Homeland Security. A person with direct knowledge of Caraballo's dismissal told Politico that the EPA is saying he was let go because of a personnel issue stemming from a military job he held nearly 10 years ago that was resolved at the time and reviewed by the EPA years ago. His firing won't scare critics of Pruitt, one employee told Politico, adding, "this is going to embolden us to leak more to get these criminals out." On Feb. 14, Caraballo signed off on a report that stated, "EPA Intelligence has not identified any specific, credible, direct threat to the EPA administrator." EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox has claimed that Pruitt has received an "unprecedented" amount of death threats, and that's why he has a full-time, 20-person-strong security detail and must travel in first class. President Trump repeated that death-threats claim last week. In a letter sent Tuesday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) said they read the report, and the "threats" were actually "nonviolent protests" and "negative feedback" about Pruitt's policies and actions. The senators called for bipartisan oversight hearings at the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, a request denied by committee chairman Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.). Catherine Garcia | |
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| 04-11-18 09:14pm - 2446 days | #393 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: “as a DOJ employee, Mr. Cohen-Watnick will abide by all laws and ethical obligations that bind him.” Political games: Trump orders DOJ to hire controversial former aide. Lawyer says his client was not fired from the White House. Instead, the client left of his own free will. However, other sources say the client was forced out. Are lawyers legally liable for statements they make on behalf of their clients? Apparently not. The rules seem to be: they can say whatever the fuck they want. Their statements do not have to respond to reality. Or truth. ---------- ---------- Trump Ordered DOJ to Hire Controversial Former Aide, Sources Say By Chris Strohm and Jennifer Jacobs April 11, 2018, 9:52 AM PDT Updated on April 11, 2018, 2:40 PM PDT President Donald Trump personally ordered the Department of Justice to hire a former White House official who departed after he was caught up in a controversy over the release of intelligence material to a member of Congress, according to people familiar with the matter. Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who was forced out of the National Security Council last year, will advise Attorney General Jeff Sessions on national security matters. He left the White House in August for a job at Oracle Corp. following reports that he had shown House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes classified documents. The material allegedly revealed that members of the Obama administration had sought the identities of Trump campaign officials and associates inadvertently caught on government intercepts, in a process known as “unmasking.” Nunes then disclosed that information publicly in an attempt to bolster Trump’s unsubstantiated allegation that President Barack Obama had wiretapped him. Cohen-Watnick’s attorney, Mark Zaid, said that reports of his involvement in the Nunes incident were erroneous. While Cohen-Watnick was working on unmasking issues at the NSC, Zaid said in an interview, “he never showed the documents to Nunes. He never met with Nunes. He had nothing to do with Nunes.” Zaid said that Cohen-Watnick was not fired from the White House. “There was a decision that he was going to leave the NSC to go to another federal position and he resigned on his own accord to go to Oracle,” Zaid said. Bloomberg previously reported that former National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster had Cohen-Watnick removed from the White House agency. A White House official confirmed Wednesday he was forced out. Zaid said that Sessions offered Cohen-Watnick a job in September. Cohen-Watnick neither accepted nor declined the position, Zaid said. “He was continuing to enjoy his time at Oracle,” he said. Trump had thought Cohen-Watnick began working at the Justice Department in the fall, but a confidant told the president during a recent phone call that he was not, according to a person briefed on the call. Trump was displeased, and told staff to make it clear he wanted Cohen-Watnick on the job as soon as possible. Cohen-Watnick was recently asked again to join the Justice Department and accepted, Zaid said. He starts his new government job on Monday. As a matter of policy, the White House generally doesn’t approve the rehiring of staff who are dismissed, aides said. But after it became clear the president wanted Cohen-Watnick on Sessions’ staff, the move was approved. His rehiring drew criticism from Democrats, who speculated Cohen-Watnick may attempt to interfere in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Given Mr. Cohen-Watnick’s reported role in helping Congressman Nunes turn the House Intelligence Committee investigation into a partisan breeding ground for conspiracy theories, his new position with the Attorney General at such a sensitive time is deeply troubling,” Matt House, a spokesman for Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, said in a statement. “Mr. Cohen-Watnick must not come anywhere near the Mueller investigation, and Democrats will watch like a hawk to ensure that’s the case.” Zaid called House’s statement “highly irresponsible” and said “as a DOJ employee, Mr. Cohen-Watnick will abide by all laws and ethical obligations that bind him.” Cohen-Watnick also previously worked with Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who resigned after he misled administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Cohen-Watnick’s new role at the Justice Department was first reported by Talking Points Memo. | |
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| 04-11-18 08:19pm - 2447 days | #392 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics NYT Editorial Board Unloads On Trump: 'The Law Is Coming' HuffPost Hayley Miller,HuffPost 14 hours ago The New York Times editorial board has issued another searing indictment on President Donald Trump’s character and leadership. In a blistering piece published Tuesday, the Times’ editorial board taunted the president about Monday’s FBI raid of the office of Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal lawyer, and warned that “the law is coming.” “Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of developers and celebrities, and also of grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks,” the editorial board wrote. “He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado.” “Those methods may be proving to have their limits when they are applied from the Oval Office,” it continued. “Though Republican leaders in Congress still keep a cowardly silence, Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid.” Trump has been fuming since news broke of the FBI raid on Cohen’s office. The search warrant was reportedly executed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York following a tip from special counsel Robert Mueller, the head of a federal probe into whether Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia. Trump on Monday floated the idea of firing Mueller, despite both Democratic and Republican lawmakers warning him not to do so. Trump appeared to call the raid “a total witch hunt” in a tweet Tuesday. “One might ask, if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?” the editorial board wrote. “The answer, of course, is that he has a lot to hide.” In a final blow, the Times editorial board skewered Trump for calling the raid “an attack on our country.” “No, Mr. Trump — a true attack on America is what happened on, say, Sept. 11, 2001. Remember that one?” it wrote. “Thousands of people lost their lives. Your response was to point out that the fall of the twin towers meant your building was now the tallest in downtown Manhattan. Of course, that also wasn’t true.” This isn’t the first time the editorial board has unloaded on Trump. In January, it published a piece titled “Why Does President Trump Fear The Truth?” In March, it published another called “Donald Trump Sure Has A Problem With Democracy.” Read the full editorial at The New York Times. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 04-11-18 07:18pm - 2447 days | #390 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Impeachment of Trump seems to be a growing possibility. Now the problem becomes: Do we really want Mike Pence to become President? ----------- ----------- Trump admits to obstruction of justice on Twitter, says he only did it to ‘fight back’ Tweets a good lawyer would advise against. Aaron Rupar Apr 11, 2018, 10:06 am On Wednesday morning, President Trump tried to make a case that investigators had no good reason to raid the office, home, and hotel room of his longtime personal attorney, Michael Cohen. But in doing so, Trump seemed to casually admit to obstruction of justice. “I (we) are… doing things that nobody thought possible, despite the never ending and corrupt Russia Investigation, which takes tremendous time and focus,” Trump tweeted. “No Collusion or Obstruction (other than I fight back), so now they do the Unthinkable, and RAID a lawyers office for information! BAD!” Suffice it to say there is no “fighting back” exception to obstruction of justice charges, which were part of the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Trump’s tweet comes almost 11 months to the day after he seemed to admit to obstructing justice during an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt conducted just days after he fired FBI Director James Comey — who at the time was overseeing the investigation into the Trump campaign. CREDIT: Screenshot, NBC Did Donald Trump just write his own articles of impeachment? Trump told Holt that “when I decided to do it, I said to myself… this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.” In short, Trump admitted his decision to fire Comey was motivated by his frustration about the FBI’s investigation of his campaign. The president’s extraordinary Twitter admission comes a day after responded to news of the Cohen raid by expressing deep confusion about attorney-client privilege. In a tweet, Trump proclaimed that “Attorney–client privilege is dead!” — apparently oblivious to the existence of the “crime-fraud exception,” which means communications between you and your attorney about future criminal acts are not protected. Trump is not a lawyer, and his legal team is currently in chaos. His former lead attorney responding to Mueller’s investigation, John Dowd, resigned late last month — reportedly because he and Trump weren’t on the same page about whether sitting for an interview was a good idea. Two replacements he sought to add to his team decided not to join it, purportedly due to a conflict of interest. That left Trump’s least qualified lawyer, Jay Sekulow, as a de facto leader of his legal team. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Mueller’s investigation pertaining to obstruction of justice is “close to completion, but he may set it aside while he finishes other key parts of his probe, such as possible collusion and the hacking of Democrats.” | |
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| 04-11-18 07:09pm - 2447 days | #388 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Missouri governor Eric Greitens accused of aggressive sexual encounters with his hairdresser. Shades of Donald Trump. Why shades of Donald Trump? Greitens "has steadfastly denied any criminal wrongdoing. He said he expects to be proven innocent during this trial, which is scheduled for May 14. Speaking shortly before the report was released, Greitens told reporters gathered at the Capitol that he expected it to contain "lies and falsehoods" and reaffirmed his commitment to remaining in office. "This is a political witch hunt," Greitens said, invoking one of President Donald Trump's favored criticisms of unwanted investigations. Greitens later added: "This is exactly like what's happening with the witch hunts in Washington, D.C." Although Greitens might be trying to follow in Trump's footsteps, my hope is that Trump himself treats the women he beds with a little more decency, even if he and his lawyer and allies try to silence the women from public disclosure. ---------- ---------- Report: Missouri Gov. Greitens initiated unwanted sex acts Associated Press David a. Lieb and Summer Ballentine, Associated Press,Associated Press 29 minutes ago Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens speaks at a news conference about allegations related to his extramarital affair with his hairdresser, in Jefferson City, Mo., Wednesday, April 11, 2018. Greitens initiated a physically aggressive unwanted sexual encounter with his hairdresser and threatened to distribute a partially nude photo of her if she spoke about it, according to testimony from the woman released Wednesday by a House investigatory committee. (Julie Smith/The Jefferson City News-Tribune via AP) JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens initiated a physically aggressive unwanted sexual encounter with his hairdresser and threatened to distribute a partially nude photo of her if she spoke about it, according to testimony from the woman released Wednesday by a House investigatory committee. The graphic report details multiple instances in which the woman said Greitens spanked, slapped, grabbed, shoved and called her derogatory names during a series of sexual encounters as he was preparing to run for office in 2015. The testimony contradicts Greitens' previous assertions that "there was no violence" and "no threat of violence" in what he has described as a consensual extramarital affair. The report, signed by all five Republicans and two Democrats on the committee, describes the woman's testimony as credible and notes that Greitens has so far declined to testify or provide documents to the panel. But it outlines some of the Republican governor's public comments that appear to run counter to her allegations. Flanked by other top Republican legislative leaders, House Speaker Todd Richardson announced that the special committee will expand its mission and make recommendations after the May 18 end of the regular legislative session on whether to pursue impeachment proceedings seeking to remove Greitens from office. The special House investigation was initiated shortly after Greitens was indicted in February on a felony invasion-of-privacy charge for taking a nonconsensual photo of the partially nude woman and transmitting it in a way that could be accessed by a computer. The woman told the committee that Greitens took the photo after manipulating her into a compromising position during an unwanted sexual encounter and that he told her "everyone will know what a little whore you are" if she told anyone about him. Greitens, 44, has refused to directly answer media questions about whether he took the photo, but he has steadfastly denied any criminal wrongdoing. He said he expects to be proven innocent during this trial, which is scheduled for May 14. Speaking shortly before the report was released, Greitens told reporters gathered at the Capitol that he expected it to contain "lies and falsehoods" and reaffirmed his commitment to remaining in office. "This is a political witch hunt," Greitens said, invoking one of President Donald Trump's favored criticisms of unwanted investigations. Greitens later added: "This is exactly like what's happening with the witch hunts in Washington, D.C." Richardson called the women's testimony "beyond disturbing" and defended the integrity of the investigation. He said: "Let me be very clear about this: This is not a witch hunt, and the committee had no political agenda." If the House were to impeach Greitens, the Senate then would choose seven jurists to conduct a trial on whether Greitens should be ousted. The impeachment process can occur independently of a criminal case. The report prompted Republican U.S. Senate candidate Josh Hawley to call for Greitens' resignation. Hawley, the state's attorney general, said the report contains "shocking, substantial, and corroborated evidence of wrongdoing by Governor Greitens." Hawley is seeking Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill's seat, and she and Democratic state legislative leaders also called for Greitens' resignation. Democrats have been running TV ads linking Greitens to Hawley. According to the report, the woman testified that she met Greitens in 2013 as a customer of her hair salon. She said she had a crush on Greitens but was shocked when he ran his hand up her leg and touched her crotch without her consent during a March 2015 hair appointment. He later invited her to his St. Louis home while his wife was out of town. After she arrived through the back door, the report said that the woman testified Greitens searched her purse and "patted her down from head-to-toe." He then asked if she had exercised and had her change into a white T-shirt with a slit on the top and pajama pants. "I thought, oh, this is going to be some sort of sexy workout," the woman testified. But once in his basement, Greitens taped her hands to pull-up rings, blindfolded her, started kissing her, ripped open the shirt and pulled down her pants, the woman testified. She didn't give consent to be disrobed or kissed, the report said. The woman testified that she then heard a click, like of a cellphone picture, and saw a flash. The woman testified that Greitens told her: "Don't even mention my name to anybody at all, because if you do, I'm going to take these pictures, and I'm going to put them everywhere I can. They are going to be everywhere, and then everyone will know what a little whore you are." When she remained silent, the woman said Greitens "spanked me and said, 'Are you going to mention my name?' And I said, I just gritted through my teeth, and I said, 'No.' And he's like, 'Good, now that's a good girl.'" "I was definitely fearful," the woman testified to the legislative committee. After telling Greitens, "I don't want this," the woman testified that Greitens unbound her hands. She said she started "uncontrollably crying." She said Greitens then grabbed her in a hug and laid her down. She said he put his penis near her face and she gave him oral sex. Asked by the committee whether the oral sex was coerced, she responded: "Coerced, maybe. I felt as though that would allow me to leave." The woman testified that she confronted him later that day about the photo and he responded: "You have to understand, I'm running for office, and people will get me, and I have to have some sort of thing to protect myself." Then she said Greitens added: "I felt bad, so I erased it." The House committee report said it doesn't possess any physical or electronic evidence of the photo. Prosecutors in his criminal case previously acknowledged that they don't have the photo, though they could be trying to obtain it. The woman's name never has been officially released; it is redacted from the legislative documents and she is identified only by her initials in court filings. Her attorney has repeatedly sought anonymity on her behalf. The woman testified to the committee that she had several additional sexual encounters with Greitens, including one in June 2015 when "he slapped me across my face" after she acknowledged having slept with her husband. She said she "felt like he was trying to claim me." In another subsequent sexual encounter, the woman testified that Greitens "out of nowhere just, like kind of smacked me and grabbed me and shoved me down on the ground, and I instantly just started bawling." It "actually hurt, and I know that I actually was really scared and sad when that happened," she testified. The woman's account contradicts statements Greitens made previously. Asked in a January interview with The Associated Press if he had ever slapped the woman, Greitens responded: "Absolutely not." Greitens, a Rhodes Scholar and former Navy SEAL officer who was once considered a rising GOP star, first acknowledged having an extramarital affair on Jan. 10, when St. Louis TV station KMOV ran a story revealing that the woman's ex-husband had released a secret audio recording of a 2015 conversation in which she told him about the photo Greitens took at his home. The woman testified to the House committee that her husband had said: "I'm going to ruin this guy." Greitens on Wednesday criticized the House report as "one-sided tabloid, trash gossip that was produced in a secret room." He also referenced a comment the woman made during a lengthy deposition in his criminal case when she was asked if she saw what she believed to be a phone. A court filing from Greitens' attorneys quoted her as saying, "I haven't talked about it because I don't know if it's because I'm remembering it through a dream or I — I'm not sure, but yes, I feel like I saw it after that happened." Greitens and his defense team have seized on the "dream" comment to attack the credibility of her testimony. But the prosecutor in the case says the defense "cherry picked bits and pieces" of her nine-hour deposition and the woman's attorney says the comment referred to one particular instance concerning the photo. | |
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| 04-11-18 06:00am - 2447 days | #376 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
So Bill Clinton was unfit to be President because he lied and played around while he was married. But Donald Trump gets a pass. So what if Donald Trump is a liar, a bully, a womanizer who cheats on his wives? What is the meaning of virtue if there is no temptation? Kind of meaningless, if you think about it. What kind of moral code is Donald Trump following? As far as I can tell, he doesn't have a moral code. He grabs for whatever he can get. Cash, fame, women, whatever. Would a lie stand in the way of his grabs? Of course not. Morality is for the simple man, the idiots who are too stupid to grab for themselves. That's why Donald Trump is the smartest, bravest, the best-est President we've ever had: because he says it again and again. So it must be true, right? (Except that Donald Trump believes, or hopes, that his current lies are covered by some theory that whatever he says cannot be judged by truth, since he is now a politician, and political speech is protected by law.) Edited on Apr 11, 2018, 06:10am | |
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| 04-10-18 06:01pm - 2448 days | #373 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Eastern European models (from Russia and surrounding areas) and Japanese models are some of the most beautiful women in the world. | |
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| 04-10-18 10:24am - 2448 days | #370 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Scott Pruitt, fan of taxpayer-funded first class travel, flies coach when he has to pay for it The EPA administrator with champagne tastes was also caught in a bold-faced lie on a staffing scandal. Ryan Koronowski Apr 7, 2018, 12:31 pm Fliers posted around Capitol Hill poke fun at EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on April 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. CREDIT: Win McNamee/Getty Images Fliers posted around Capitol Hill poke fun at EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt on April 6, 2018 in Washington, DC. CREDIT: Win McNamee/Getty Images EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is having a bad week, and it didn’t let up on Saturday. Pruitt, famous for his profligate taxpayer-funded first-class travel, actually flew coach when the taxpayers weren’t footing the bill, according to an Associated Press report on Saturday. The rationale Pruitt’s defenders gave for spending thousands of dollars on first-class travel was an increased volume in security threats. When asked about the nature of these threats, EPA told Politico that someone approached Pruitt in an airport yelling “Scott Pruitt, you’re f—ing up the environment.” It remains unclear how flying first class would prevent people from approaching Pruitt in airports with or without expletive-laden environmental critiques. The AP report from Saturday noted that there is no record of anyone being charged with or arrested for threatening the EPA administrator. Pruitt’s decision to fly coach when the cost of his travel is not covered with public money pokes a giant hole in the argument that he needed to fly first class for his own protection. Anyone threatening harm to the EPA administrator would not be able to distinguish between Pruitt’s personal and business travel. Taxpayers, however, still covered the cost of security detail that accompanied him on personal travel. Pruitt’s predecessor, Gina McCarthy, flew coach, and was not accompanied by security during her personal trips. The AP also reported that Pruitt spent millions on a full-time security detail with 20 members, which is three times the size of the part-time detail McCarthy used. EPA staff who spoke up about Pruitt’s spending or management habits were demoted or reassigned, according to a report by the New York Times on Thursday. At times, these security efforts pulled officers from investigating actual environmental crimes. Under Pruitt, regular environmental enforcement dropped 44 percent from what past administrations accomplished in the first year. And in February, the EPA’s Office of Inspector General told Congress that it could not keep investigating Pruitt’s scandals because the office had run out of money after years of budget cuts. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt. (CREDIT: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Don’t let Scott Pruitt’s first class travel distract you from an even bigger scandal The embattled EPA administrator was also caught in a lie this week, heightening the threat to his job security in the Trump administration. On Wednesday, Pruitt told Fox News that he did not know about the use of an obscure loophole that gave two of his top staffers significant pay raises, and did not approve them. “I did not. My staff did. And I found out about that yesterday and I changed it,” he told Fox News’ Ed Henry. However, as the Washington Post reported Thursday, Pruitt did approve of giving Sarah Greenwalt, his 30-year-old senior counsel, a $56,000 raise and 26-year old scheduling director Millan Hupp a $28,000 raise. The White House had denied the raises weeks before the EPA granted them. Pruitt told Fox News that he had stopped the raises this week. Travel and staff salaries were not even the most prominent ethics scandal orbiting the top environmental official in the Trump administration. Pruitt has faced heavy criticism for a sweetheart deal with an energy-industry-connected lobbyist, who let Pruitt stay in a luxury Capitol Hill apartment for $50 per night. The embattled EPA chief met with President Trump on Friday, where he reportedly pleaded for his job. He has few allies in the White House, but still has support from far-right and libertarian-leaning Republicans because of his success gutting Obama-era environmental rules and carrying out a very conservative deregulatory agenda. As Reuters reported on Friday, Pruitt met with 25 times more industry representatives than environmental advocates. | |
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| 04-10-18 10:03am - 2448 days | #369 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@Loki, People are different: different behaviors, different beliefs, different religions, etc. Look at Donald Trump. He is the President. Is he trying to follow the Presidential ideal of an ethical leader, who would never dream of calling people crazy because he feels like it? Or does he take pleasure in calling people crazy or stupid, because it shows how powerful he is? How smart he is. What a great man he is. Be a little more like Donald Trump, and maybe you will become a greater, more powerful person as well. Then you will be able to name-call, and boast, and make up self-serving lies. | |
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| 04-09-18 10:58pm - 2448 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Just came across this video, of a real life horror story. Little girl, frightened by her own shadow. Can't make it disappear. Can life get any worse? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyYBL-8yx5M | |
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| 04-09-18 08:32pm - 2449 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
https://www.thewrap.com/porn-star-nikki-...it-against-brazzers/ The Wrap Porn Star Nikki Benz Files Sexual Battery Lawsuit Against Brazzers Director Tony T. and performer Ramon Nomar also named in lawsuit Tim Kenneally | Last Updated: April 9, 2018 @ 7:53 PM Porn performer Nikki Benz filed a lawsuit against porn company Brazzers, director Tony T. and performer Ramon Nomar on Monday, alleging that she was “struck on the face, head and breasts hard enough to cause her to bleed” during a December 2016 shoot. In the suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday, Benz names Brazzers, its parent company MindGeek, director Tony T. and male performer Ramon Nomar, alleging battery, assault, sexual battery, gender violence and other counts. Benz alleges that, prior the the beginning of the shoot, she was only aware “that the shoot would be hardcore and what she would be wearing.” However, the suit says, Tony T. repeatedly “slapped Benz’s face and breasts,’ saying, ‘Open your eyes bitch’ and, ‘Open your f—ing eyes.'” “He would film with one hand and choke Benz with the other hand. Nomar stomped on Benz’s head. Between Tony T. and Nomar, Benz was hit, slapped choked and thrown on the ground and against the wall,” the suit reads. The suit also says that Benz suffered physical violence enough to cause bleeding, that Nomar and Tony T concealed the blood by pouring water on the walls and flow, and that Benz was not only gagged with her own underwear, but also effectively waterboarded. The complaint adds that Benz never consented to having Tony T. touch her during the shoot at any time, and called “cut” several times during the shoot to express that to him and Nomar. During the exit interview, when asked if she would do the shoot again, she said that she wouldn’t shoot with them again, the suit alleges, after which Tony T. yelled, “Stop!” “Tony T. made Benz record her exit interview again to give a ‘yes’ response,” saying that if she didn’t do so, “Benz would not receive her check,” the suit, which seeks unspecified damages, reads. As a result, the suit says, Benz suffered “pain, suffering, emotional distress, as well as past and future medical expenses and lost wages.” TheWrap has reached out to MindGeek and an attorney for Tony T. and Nomar for response to the suit. Benz first accused Tony T. of assault in December, after which he was fired by Brazzers. The director filed suit his own lawsuit against Benz, Brazzers and MindGeek, claiming that he was defamed by her accusations. Nomar was also listed as a plaintiff in the suit. Pamela Chelin contributed to this report. | |
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| 04-09-18 08:31pm - 2449 days | #365 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@RagingBuddhist, I'm truly sorry to see you've disabled your account. You always contributed to this site with information and civility. In spite of the middle finger pointing directly at me. (Joke) I hope you will return, because the site is still worth visiting. As for this thread, some people might snipe at each other, but it's far from a nuclear flame war. I'm wishing you the best, in your time away from the site. | |
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| 04-09-18 12:44am - 2449 days | #280 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
alex-lynn.com I asked about this site a while back. Did PU ever get a response about listing this? It's a softcore glamour site by a photographer who contributes to MetArt. | |
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| 04-08-18 11:40pm - 2449 days | #343 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Ms. Bowman said the criticism was unjustified, saying that Mr. Pruitt paid what one E.P.A. official called a “market value” rent. However, an examination of Capitol Hill rentals suggests that rates typically are considerably higher and generally do not come with a provision, as Mr. Pruitt’s did, that the renter can pay for only the nights stayed at the condo. | |
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| 04-08-18 11:32pm - 2449 days | #342 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
I agree. Let's all move to New York, as soon as Donald Trump opens the Trump Tower (and any of his other hotels) to low-cost housing. After all, didn't President Trump say recently that his EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, was paying market rates for the condo he was renting, at $50 a night? Not only President Trump, but the EPA agency, said that $50 per night was a reasonable price to pay. With assurances like these, I figure I should be able to get affordable housing at Trump Towers (or whatever they are named), because Trump is a man who loves everyone, and wants to help us out with the best deals possible. That reminds me of the lawyer for Trump's personal lawyer. The lawyer said on national TV that when Trump's personal lawyer offered to gut some TV host because of negative remarks she made about Trump, Trump's lawyer was only offering helpful advise. So the TV host replied that was bullshit. She had to hire personal protection after getting death threats from Trump fans. I love the way Trump and his allies use words: the truth shines through.  | |
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| 04-08-18 12:47am - 2450 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Russell Crowe's Leather Jock Strap Sells for $7,000 at ''Art of Divorce'' Auction by Meg Swertlow | Sat., Apr. 7, 2018 2:50 PM Russell Crowe, Art of Divorce, Sotheby's, auction Sotheby's Australia Not bad for less than a day's work and only a decade of memories! More than five years after splitting from his wife of nine years, Russell Crowe is almost officially divorced, but before all that's said and done, the Aussie actor's pulled an unusual move to mark the end of his marriage—with an auction called "The Art of Divorce." Turns out that one of the most popular items up for auction was a leather jock strap from his 2005 film, Cinderella Man, which went for $7,000. In addition to the high-priced support wear, the superstar sold off some of the treasures, including art, furniture and keepsakes from his time with soon-to-be ex-wife Danielle Spencer. On April 7 (which is both the actor's birthday and wedding anniversary), Sotheby’s Australia auctioned off 200 items from the Oscar winner, including movie memorabilia, art, and furniture to the highest bidder. The event was live-streamed on Facebook. Afterwards, Crowe took to Twitter to tell his followers that the auction brought in nearly $4 million. The Gladiator star tweeted, "In case anyone is interested ... $3.7m at the coal face and around $350k of conversations ongoing." According to Sotheby's website, "The sale represents the dispersal of a highly personal collection that was assembled by Crowe over many years, including those shared with his former wife, Danielle Spencer." Sotheby's continues, "The Russell Crowe Collection comprises important paintings by some of Australia’s most significant historic, modern and contemporary artists, furniture, movie memorabilia, musical instruments, watches and sporting memorabilia." Russell Crowe, Art of Divorce, Sotheby's, auction On Friday, Crowe told Good Morning Britain that the jock strap was "one of the most popular items" ahead of Saturday's aucution. He said it was put in as a joke, "It was my jock strap when I won the heavyweight championship of the world as the character James J. Braddock in the film Cinderella Man. I put it in the collection as a piece of whimsy and a bit of a gag. Funny enough, it's garnered a lot of attention." In addition to the pricey jock strap, one notable piece was the molded polyurethane "armor" that Crowe wore in Gladiator, which was estimated at $20,000-$30,000, but sold for $125,000. Other items from the Ridley Scott-directed film went for the most money. An aluminum prop sword and spare blade combo sold for $70,000, a Roman chariot replica got $65,000 and a pair of black leather wrist cuffs fetched $32,000. The item that sold for the most money was Charles Blackman's 1960 painting "The Suitor," which earned $360,000. Despite splitting in 2012, Crowe and Spencer have still been legally married. In 2015, Crowe told The Sunday Times he still loved his estranged wife. "I've loved Danielle Spencer since 1989—that's never going to change—and that's one of those things where I stare at her and go, ‘How did it fail?' I still can't work it out, because my feelings for her have never changed." When asked about the chances of them rekindling their relationship, Crowe added, "Once I commit to something, I stick with it, so you never know." But it seems that relationship has sailed. Crowe and Spencer have two children together, sons Tennyson, 11 , and Charles, 13. | |
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| 04-07-18 04:47pm - 2451 days | #279 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
nakety.com A new softcore glamour site I just ran across. Site is just starting out. So probably has very little content. Probably should wait a while before joining, so amount of content can build up. | |
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| 04-07-18 03:34pm - 2451 days | #4 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Cop should be given a medal for protecting the public against a man who was jaywalking. Instead, the city will now have to give additional training to cops (to teach them when beating an unarmed civilian is the proper thing to do). The cop who beat the unarmed civilian will be a better cop after he receives training. Hopefully, the training will include martial arts on taking down suspects, using lethal force only when needed. Otherwise, the city of Sacramento might have to pay more than $550,000 in lawsuits. ------------ ------------ After Man Beaten by Officer, Sacramento Agrees to Police Policy Changes in Settlement Posted 4:42 PM, April 6, 2018, by Joe Khalil, Updated at 10:37AM, April 7, 2018 SACRAMENTO -- The City of Sacramento and the Sacramento Police Department agreed to more training and some policy changes in a settlement about a man who was beaten by an officer a year ago, the man's attorney said. Video of Officer Anthony Figueroa, who is white, tackling Nandi Cain, who is black, to the ground and punching him repeatedly quickly went viral and brought national attention to the city. Figueroa had stopped Cain for jaywalking. According to a statement from Cain's attorney, Cain will receive a $550,000 payout. On top of that, Councilman Allen Warren confirmed to FOX40 that the City of Sacramento agreed to policy changes within the police department. "The settlement was appropriate," Warren said. "I think clearly the young man was not doing anything inappropriate." The changes include new implicit bias training and a cultural immersion program for the whole department. Both are meant to help officers address people who come from a different ethnic background than they do. Officer Figueroa won't be allowed to return to duty in Del Paso Heights until he finishes both of those training programs. "I do believe he’ll probably be a better police officer as a result of this process," Warren told FOX40. Cain's attorney, John Burris, maintains Officer Figueroa was at fault -- that his client never jaywalked and was actually targeted by the officer. "He escalated the situation when he should have deescalated," Burris said. Still, Burris is hopeful about the direction of the Sacramento Police Department, especially after changes prompted by Cain's settlement. "It brings forth an attempt to bring about positive reforms that could have the impact of preventing this kind of conduct from occurring in the future," Burris told FOX40. Neither the city manager's office or the police department would comment on the settlement until it was officially signed. | |
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| 04-07-18 02:04pm - 2451 days | #3 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
A teenager (he was 15 at the time of the crime, now 19 years old) sentenced to 65 years in prison. His crime? Part of a group of teens who committed burglary. But his problem: A cop shot and killed one of the burglars. So the teen, by state law, was found guilty of murder, since a cop shot and killed one of the burglars. The murder rap, plus the burglary rap, plus 2 more sentences of 10 years each for theft, adds up to 65 years in prison. Moral of the story: stay out of Alabama if you want to commit burglary. 65 years, because a cop kills a burglar? That makes as much sense as 4 teens getting a suspended sentence because they killed a man for thrills (throwing a sandbag onto a freeway while cars are going by, and a man dies from the thrown sandbag.) ------ ------ U.S. Teen Gets Decades In Prison For ‘Murder’ Of Someone Killed By A Cop HuffPost Hilary Hanson,HuffPost 3 hours ago A judge on Thursday sentenced an Alabama teenager to 65 years in prison for a series of crimes, including murder, even though a police officer was the one who actually killed the victim. Lakeith Smith, now 18, was convicted under the state’s accomplice liability law in March. Based on that law, a person can be convicted of murder if they were committing a crime with the deceased that led to the other person’s death, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. In Smith’s case, he was involved in burglaries alongside A’Donte Washington, 16, when a police officer shot and killed Washington in 2015. In February 2015, both Smith and Washington were part of a group of five who broke into two houses in Millbrook, Alabama, the Advertiser reports. When police responded to the scene, the two sides exchanged gunfire. Body camera footage played in court showed Washington running towards an officer pointing a gun at him. The officer then shot and killed Washington. Circuit Judge Sibley Reynolds sentenced Smith to 65 years in prison on Thursday — 30 years for a felony murder, 15 for burglary and two 10-year sentences for theft. “The officer shot A’donte, not Lakeith Smith,” said Smith’s attorney Jennifer Holton during the trial, as per USA Today. “Lakeith was a 15-year-old child, scared to death. He did not participate in the act that caused the death of A’donte. He never shot anybody.” Though Smith was a minor when the incident took place, he was tried as an adult. In March, Smith declined a plea deal that would have sentenced him to 25 years in prison; he was convicted later that month. The other three defendants involved in the burglaries have all entered guilty pleas, Fox 8 Live reports. One has been sentenced to 28 years in prison, while the other two have not yet been sentenced. And as for the Millbrook police officer who actually killed Washington? A grand jury cleared him of any wrongdoing back in 2016, saying he was justified in fatally shooting Washington, WSFA reported at the time. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 04-07-18 12:31pm - 2451 days | #2 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
My guess is that the guilty teen who read an apology from a letter had help writing the letter (maybe from his lawyer). And that the judge was so moved by the letter, that the judge felt the poor teen, who helped kill a man, was a really nice kid. Who made a mistake. Or maybe the kid was having a bit of fun when the sandbag was dropped on a car passing underneath. So what if a man died? Did it spoil the fun the 4 teens were having? Did the judge at least tell the boys not to drop any more sand bags or rocks onto cars? Or was that lesson to be passed onto the police department, if the boys are caught playing such games in the future? "The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to the Department of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in the Department of Youth Services." 3 years for manslaughter (killing a man). 5-7 years in juvie for murder (killing a man). Sentence suspend for all. That's the kind of judge I want at my next trial. | |
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| 04-07-18 12:12pm - 2451 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Justice served: 4 teens who killed a man given suspended sentences. Four teens who dropped a sandbag onto a freeway, killing a man, were given suspended sentences. My guess is that the the teens were too young to understand why the man died, so the judge, instead of sending them to juvenile jail, said: "You're good guys. Don't do this again. Right?" And justice has been served. However, the 4 teens apologized in court to the victim's family. So everyone should be happy, now that the 4 teens have apologized. -------- -------- Good Morning America Ohio teens given suspended sentence for dropping sandbag off overpass that killed man Good Morning America MARK OSBORNE,Good Morning America 5 hours ago The four Ohio teens who pleaded guilty to dropping a sandbag off a freeway overpass that killed a 22-year-old man were given a suspended sentence and ordered to a treatment center on Friday. Marquis Byrd was the passenger in a vehicle that was hit by the sandbag dropped onto Interstate 75 in Toledo last December. Byrd was left in critical condition and died three days later in the hospital. The four teens, all aged 13 or 14, pleaded guilty to either murder or manslaughter. The boy who dropped the sandbag pleaded guilty to murder while the other three pleaded to involuntary manslaughter, the Toledo Blade reported. The teen who pleaded guilty to murder was sentenced to the Department of Youth Services until he turns 21, while the teens who pleaded guilty to manslaughter were sentenced to three years in the Department of Youth Services. All four sentences were suspended by the judge in favor of being sent to Toledo's Lucas County Youth Treatment Center. "It's a treatment facility, for certain services, to provide so these boys change their behavior and can become productive members of our community," Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon said. Ohio teens now charged with murder for allegedly killing motorist with sandbag dropped from overpass Overpass death highlights dangers from above for motorists and pedestrians Lillian Diallo, the lawyer for Marquis Byrd's family, called the decision to suspend the teens' sentences in connection with dropping a sandbag on a vehicle 'outrageous.' (WTVG) The decision to suspend the teens' sentences and send them to the treatment facility drew outrage from Lillian Diallo, the Byrd family's lawyer, who called the decision "outrageous." "Suspended what? If you do what? So eight months you get to go home?" Diallo told Toledo ABC station WTVG outside the courtroom following the sentencing. "This child will never be at home. His son will never see him. His mother will never be able to say, 'Hey son, how are you? How's your day?' Touch his face, see his face. This is outrageous." There were 30 letters written on behalf of Byrd, asking for a strong punishment for the boys. The four convicted teens apologized in court to the victim's family. "I pray for him and his family every single day and night and cannot imagine what they are going through and how they feel right now," one of the boys said Friday, reading from a letter. Lucas County Juvenile Court Judge Denise Navarre Cubbon gave the four teens who dropped a sandbag on a car a suspended sentence on Friday, March 6, 2018. (WTVG) The four teens initially pleaded not guilty to the charges of murder and vehicular vandalism, the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office said. "Let me tell you something -- at the age of 10 you know if you take something and put it in a moving lane of traffic, you should know what the consequence will be," Diallo said. "You didn't take the sandbag and throw it on the side. You took that sandbag and you threw it down there to that boy's death." Diallo, who knew Byrd, told ABC News in January that Byrd, a father to a 2-year-old boy, was planning a surprise proposal for his girlfriend, the mother of his child. | |
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| 04-01-18 03:57pm - 2457 days | #3 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@biker, Thanks for the positive feedback. Glad that someone likes my offbeat posts. Or, at least, some of them. | |
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| 04-01-18 01:25pm - 2457 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The youngster is more expressive than the adult, who has seen it all before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8fdQYxcLEA | |
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| 04-01-18 01:14pm - 2457 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The Wrap Netflix Announces Acquisition of Seth Rogen – All of Him (Video) Streaming services says “Pineapple Express” actor has signed over his “personal autonomy” as of April 1 — yes, note the date Jeremy Fuster | Last Updated: April 1, 2018 @ 8:56 AM Netflix on Sunday announced possibly the biggest acquisition in company history, of actor-writer-director Seth Rogen. Not Seth Rogen’s latest standup act or film. Seth Rogen. Literally, his personal autonomy, name and likeness. (Yes, note that the tongue-in-cheek announcement came on April 1.) “World-renowned Canadian person, prolific marijuana-doer, and winner of the 2015 MTV Movie Award for ‘Best Kiss’ Seth Q. Rogen has entered into a lifetime deal to transfer full ownership of his personal autonomy to Netflix, Inc,” read the statement announcing the acquisition. The first special to air on Netflix as part of this new deal will be “Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity,” an actual programming event that will feature comedy acts from Rogen and other special guests to benefit actual charities. “As a general rule, I don’t really ‘read’ anything before I sign it,” Rogen said in a statement. “That’s what Danny is for, he handles that for me, mostly…I really hope he didn’t f— this up. He’s the reason that ‘Zach and Miri Make a Porno’ exists.” As part of the announcement, Netflix released a video showing Rogen reading the details of his contract. This includes the right to frame Rogen for murder and to “make a docu-series about that murder. The contract cannot be amended and will continue to be in effect even in the case of Rogen’s “untimely and mysterious death.” “If it worked for Adam Sandler, it’ll work for me I guess, right?” Rogen said. | |
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| 03-31-18 04:01am - 2458 days | #329 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
@Jade1, very true. I've tried to stay away from the thread, but keep coming back. My hope is that I will overcome my obsession, and move on with my life. I would almost certainly be happier if I could ignore Trump completely.  | |
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| 03-30-18 09:52pm - 2458 days | #327 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump ethics in play: Did Trump have anything to do with this? No, obviously. But this is an example of the way the world works, according to Trump. By that, I mean: you would not believe the payoffs that happen in the real world. And who is paying for this? Taxpayers, usually. Because who pays to support universities, police departments, etc? Taxpayers. A football coach was fired from a university for covering up scandals. This was not only unethical, but criminal. So the coach is fired. But the university gives him $15.1 million after they fire him. Why? ----------- Report: Art Briles was paid $15.1 million by Baylor a month after firing By John TaylorMar 30, 2018, 9:29 PM EDT Even in the midst of one of the worst scandals in college football history, Art Briles still got paid. It had previously been reported that Briles and Baylor had reached on an agreement on a contract settlement, although the dollar amount involved wasn’t disclosed. Friday night, citing Baylor’s IRS filings, Chuck Carlton of the Dallas Morning News is reporting that, one month after Briles was fired as the university’s head football coach Memorial Day weekend of 2016, BU paid the disgraced head coach a $15.1 million settlement. That figure, as obscene as it is given the controversial nature of his departure, is actually a bargain for the university as Briles still had eight years and $39 million remaining on his contract when he was dismissed amidst a sexual assault scandal involving his Bears football program. In late January of 2017, damning details in one of the handful of the lawsuits facing the university emerged, with that suit alleging that 31 Bears football players had committed 52 acts of rape over a period of four years beginning in 2011. Not long after, a legal filing connected to the libel lawsuit filed by a former BU football staffer produced emails and text messages that paint a picture of Briles and/or his assistants as unrestrained rogue elements concerned with nothing more than the image of the football program off the field and its performance on it. The details in a damning document dump included allegations that Briles attempted to circumvent BU’s “judicial affairs folks” when it came to one player’s arrest… and on Briles asking, in response to one of his players brandishing a gun on a female, “she reporting [it] to authorities?”… and asking “she a stripper?” when told one of his players expected a little something extra from a female masseuse… and stating in a text “we need to know who [the] supervisor is and get him to alert us first” in response to a player who was arrested on a drug charge because the apartment superintendent called the police. In reference to a woman who alleged she was gang-raped by several Bears football players, Briles allegedly responded, “those are some bad dudes. Why was she around those guys?” While Briles parted ways with the program May 26, his termination wasn’t official until a month later. In a press release sent out on June 24 of 2016, Baylor announced that it and Briles “have mutually agreed to terminate their employment relationship.” In the release, the university mentions “[b]oth parties acknowledge that there were serious shortcomings in the response to reports of sexual violence by some student-athletes.” Still considered a pariah by many, Briles has not held a coaching job since that “mutual termination” nearly two years ago. In August of last year, it was reported that Lane Kiffin was informally using Briles to help him with his Florida Atlantic offense; the very next day, the FAU head coach very publicly stated Briles is “absolutely not a consultant” for his team. In September of last year, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the CFL raised eyebrows, among other things, when it announced that Briles had been hired as the team’s offensive coordinator; a few hours later, the team announced that “Briles will no longer be joining the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as a coach.” In January of this year, it was reported that Briles would be one of the guest speakers at the annual American Football Coaches Association Convention in Charlotte; the next day, following a wave of criticism over the impending appearance, the AFCA did a 180-degree turn and canceled Briles’ session with the coaches in attendance. | |
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| 03-30-18 07:46pm - 2459 days | #326 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Like I said before, if President Trump had been on the scene, he would have handled it better. Instead of shooting the black man in the back 7 or 8 times, Trump would have ordered the black man to turn around, and shot him in the front. Or, Trump might have rushed the black man, and taken him down in man-to-man combat. Because I read that Trump does not need a gun to take down killers. (Except the black man was not a killer, and the black man was unarmed. Police at first said the black man had a weapon, a gun, a wrench, a tool of some sort: which turned out to be a cell phone. Cell phones can be dangerous, especially if you are around a policeman who has a gun.) ----- ----- Autopsy disputes police account of fatal Sacramento shooting Associated Press DON THOMPSON and SOPHIA BOLLAG,Associated Press 1 hour 16 minutes ago SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sacramento police shot Stephon Clark seven times from behind, according to autopsy results released Friday by a pathologist hired by Clark's family, a finding that calls into question the department's assertion the 22-year-old black man was facing officers and moving toward them when he was killed. Dr. Bennet Omalu also determined Clark took three to 10 minutes to die. Police waited about five minutes before rendering medical aid. "The proposition that has been presented that he was assailing the officers, meaning he was facing the officers, is inconsistent with the prevailing forensic evidence," Omalu said at a news conference with family attorney Benjamin Crump. He said it was not clear if Clark would have survived had he gotten immediate medical attention. Sacramento police responded with a brief statement that said the department had not yet received an official autopsy report from the Sacramento County coroner's office. It said the coroner's death investigation is independent from the investigation being conducted by police and the state Department of Justice. A day after the March 18 shooting, police distributed a press release that said the officers who shot Clark "saw the suspect facing them, advance forward with his arms extended, and holding an object in his hands." Police video of the shooting doesn't clearly capture all that happened after Clark ran into his grandmother's backyard. He initially moved toward the officers, who are peeking out from behind a corner of the house, but it's not clear he's facing them or that he knows they are there when they open fire after shouting "gun, gun, gun." After 20 shots, officers call to him, apparently believing he might still be alive and armed. They eventually approach and find no gun, just a cellphone. The shooting has produced almost daily angry but peaceful protests in the downtown area of California's capital city. The autopsy heightened calls for justice and skepticism toward police among community activists. "Generally speaking, part of the outrage in the community is not only for this shooting but it's for all police shootings that are happening of unarmed people," said Dale Galipo, another Clark family lawyer. One of the big questions we all have to ask is: 'What do we need to do for these shooting to stop?'" Black Lives Matter Sacramento planned a protest Friday night outside City Hall and other actions were possible. "You'll probably see a little bit of everything," said Berry Accius, a community activist. "But that's not for me to say, it's for the people to decide." Gov. Jerry Brown issued his first statement on the situation Friday, calling it a tragic death that "raises a number of very serious questions and I support the California Attorney General's independent oversight of the investigation." Police were called to the South Sacramento neighborhood on March 18 after a neighbor reported someone was breaking car windows. A police helicopter identified a suspect, who ran as police on the ground gave chase. The helicopter video shows the two officers at the corner of Clark's grandmother's house and Clark on the backyard patio. He moves toward the officers' position as they peer around the corner and open fire. Clark staggers sideways and falls on his stomach as officers continue shooting. Omalu, whose study of a degenerative brain condition in football players prompted the NFL to adopt new safety rules designed to prevent concussions, said any of the six bullets that hit Clark in the back and one in the neck could have been the fatal shot. An eighth bullet went into Clark's thigh. The autopsy was released a day after an emotional funeral service. The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered the eulogy and praised demonstrators for their restraint and urged them to follow the lead of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his advocacy of nonviolent protest. Later in the day, police in riot gear stood waiting outside the Golden 1 Center as fans wove through barricades and fencing to enter a Sacramento Kings-Indiana Pacers game. Twice since the shooting, demonstrators had blocked thousands of fans from entering the area. But protesters never came to the arena Thursday night, heeding calls from Clark's brother, Stevante Clark, and Black Lives Matter organizers to avoid the arena. Instead, they blocked rush hour traffic on nearby downtown streets. The Kings and their owner have supported the family. Players Vince Carter, Garrett Temple and Doug Christie, a retired player, plan to appear Friday night at a youth forum staged as part of a new partnership with the Build Black Coalition and Black Lives Matter Sacramento to increase education and workforce training for black youth. Former Kings player Matt Barnes attended the funeral and helped pay for it. Associated Press reporters Kathleen Ronayne and Haven Daley in Sacramento and John Antczak and Brian Melley in Los Angeles contributed. | |
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| 03-30-18 03:32pm - 2459 days | #325 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump ran on a campaign promise to reduce the corruption in Washington. As an honorable man, would he allow appointees to engage in unethical behavior? Of course he would not. Here's an article which suggests that Scott Pruitt, head of the EPA, might have broken the law. That means, if true, that he is a criminal. Trump will have to look into the matter, and decide if he has to fire the EPA head. But not to worry: Trump loves to say "You're fired" to his appointees. --------- --------- Good Morning America EXCLUSIVE: Pruitt's EPA security broke down door to lobbyist condo Good Morning America MATTHEW MOSK, JOHN SANTUCCI and STEPHANIE EBBS,Good Morning America 21 minutes ago Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt’s protective detail broke down the door at the Capitol Hill condo where he was living, believing he was unconscious and unresponsive and needed rescue, in a bizarre incident last year that the EPA has for months refused to discuss, according to sources and police radio traffic obtained by ABC News. The incident occurred in the late afternoon on March 29, 2017 at the Capitol Hill address Pruitt was renting, which was co-owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist. A Capitol Police officer called 911 at the behest of Pruitt’s security detail, which had tried unsuccessfully to reach him by phone, and by banging on the building’s front door, according to police recordings obtained by ABC News. “They say he’s unconscious at this time,” the 911 operator is told, according to the recordings. “I don’t know about the breathing portion.” Credit: Washington D.C. Office of Unified Communications Responding fire units from a Capitol Hill station house mobilized. “Engine three, Medic two respond to unconscious person,” the radio transmission said. The protective detail then broke down the building’s glass-paneled front door and ascended two flights to Pruitt’s $50-a-night bedroom, where two sources tell ABC News he was found groggy, rising from a nap. It is unclear what led to the panic that caused the response. Pruitt declined medical attention, and a police report was never filed. The EPA eventually agreed to reimburse the condo owner for the damage to the door, a source familiar with the arrangement told ABC News. EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox did not respond to requests for information on the incident or the reimbursement payments. The previously unreported incident occurred while Pruitt was living at Capitol Hill condo co-owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist. Vicki Hart and her husband, lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, both confirmed the events, but neither would say how much the damage to the door cost to repair. The EPA has since reimbursed Pruitt's former landlord, Vicki Hart, for the cost of the door. ABC News first reported Thursday that Pruitt had lived in the condo in 2017, during his first six months in Washington. The condo is in a prime location – less than a block from the U.S. Capitol complex – and other apartments in the building complex have rented for as much as $5,000-a-month, according to a source familiar with a neighboring lease. The EPA allowed Bloomberg News to review copies of canceled checks that Pruitt paid to the condo owner. The news outlet reported that the checks show varying amounts paid on sporadic dates -- not a traditional monthly "rent payment" of the same amount each month, according to Bloomberg. In all, Pruitt paid $6,100 over six months to the limited liability corporation for the Capitol Hill condo co-owned by Vicki Hart, whose husband J. Steven Hart is chairman of a top D.C. lobbying firm and who is registered to lobby for several major environmental and energy concerns. Two sources told ABC News that Pruitt’s daughter also used the apartment in 2017 during her tenure as a White House summer intern. “The rental agreement was with Scott Pruitt,” Vicki Hart told ABC News. “If other people were using the bedroom or the living quarters, I was never told, and I never gave him permission to do that.” The EPA did not respond to requests for comment or clarification on the living arrangement with Pruitt’s daughter. McKenna Pruitt, now a law student, could not be reached by phone or email. PHOTO: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt attends a meeting with state and local officials in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., Feb. 12, 2018. (Carolyn Kaster/AP, FILE) Wilcox released a statement from EPA Senior Counsel for Ethics Justina Fugh Friday, saying she did not “conclude that this is a prohibited gift at all. It was a routine business transaction and permissible even if from a personal friend.” Wilcox did not say when Fugh reviewed the matter or what led her to look into it. Bryson Morgan, who is in private practice and served as Investigative Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics, said he thought it raised red flags. “I think it certainly creates a perception problem, especially if Mr. Hart was seeking to influence the agency,” Morgan said. Gift rules prohibit executive branch employees from accepting items of value, Morgan said in an interview prior to the EPA’s release of the details. In addition to traditional gifts, those rules apply to favorable terms on a lease. EXCLUSIVE: EPA chief Pruitt joined by family in condo tied to lobbyist 'power couple' Pruitt arranged condo deal through energy lobbyist, source says Democrats want details of Pruitt’s DC condo tied to lobbyist 'power couple' “It’s not just if he is paying market rent,” Morgan said. “A short-term lease is expensive. Is he given the ability to end it any day? Is this an arrangement any other person could get on the open market? My assumption would be this situation does not involve the hallmarks of a specific fair market transaction,” he said in an interview conducted before the checks were revealed. The new disclosure comes as Democrats in Congress are demanding that Pruitt disclose to them more details about his 2017 use of the Capitol Hill home. U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat, called on Pruitt to resign over his failure to disclose the rental deal tied to an energy lobbyist. “As he has done over and over again, he showed contempt for transparency, ethical guidelines, and the public interest,” Beyer said. “Pruitt must resign. If he refuses to do so he should be fired immediately.” Hart is the chairman of lobbying firm Williams and Jensen that lobbies on EPA policies like the Clean Air Act, according to its website. The firm also lobbied on issues related to the export of liquefied natural gas and represented Cheniere Energy Inc., which owned the only active Liquid Natural Gas export plant in the United States at the time. Pruitt traveled to Morocco last December and the EPA said in a press release that liquid natural gas exports were a topic of discussion during that trip. Last year, Cheniere Energy Inc. reported paying Hart’s firm $80,000. Hart’s firm specifically lobbied on “issues related to the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), approval of LNG exports and export facilities.” The firm also lists on its website that it lobbies on other EPA policies like the Clean Air Act. Hart was registered with several companies to lobby on energy issues, but he told ABC News on Friday that he never contacted the EPA for clients. “I made no lobby contacts at the EPA in 2017 or 2018,” Hart said. The EPA did not respond to ABC News' questions about whether Hart's lobbying firm had any involvement in arranging meetings during Pruitt's trip to Morocco. Cheniere Energy spokeswoman Rachel Carmichel told ABC News the company ended its relationship with Hart’s firm in December 2017. The spokeswoman went on to say Cheniere was unaware of the relationship between Pruitt and the lobbyist and had not used Hart’s firm to have conversations with the EPA. Another lobbying client of Hart’s, the railroad Norfolk Southern, spent $160,000 last year on lobbying Congress on “issues affecting coal usage, oil production, and transportation, including EPA regulation.” Norfolk Southern also declined to comment when reached by ABC News. Craig Holman, an ethics specialist at Public Citizen, a non-partisan watchdog group, wrote to the EPA Inspector General Thursday to request an investigation into the rental arrangement. If the rental arrangement was anything other than a market rate deal, he wrote, “it would at least constitute a violation of the federal statutes and executive branch rules prohibiting gifts to covered officials from prohibited sources.” “Since Administrator Pruitt is already involved in allegations of accepting gifts of travel, the question arises whether a sense of entitlement may have led him to violate the gift rules on this rental arrangement as well,” Holman wrote. The head of the nonprofit watchdog group the Environmental Integrity Project and former EPA Director of Civil Enforcement Eric Shaffer called on the EPA's inspector general and Congress to look into the issue. “Does this explain why Pruitt flew to Morocco to pitch natural gas exports, which isn’t really an EPA concern?” Schaeffer wrote in a statement. The EPA inspector general's office is aware of the report, according to spokesman Jeff Lagda. The agency's inspector general is already looking into the cost of Pruitt's travel and whether the agency followed all proper procedures. | |
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| 03-30-18 12:44pm - 2459 days | #324 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Donald Trump would have handled this better. The police shot and killed an unarmed Stephon Clark. They fired 20 times. If Trump had been chasing the suspect, he would not have needed a gun. However, as a superb marksman, if Trump fired 20 times, all 20 bullets would have been instantly fatal. The actual police only hit the suspect 8 times, out of 20 shots fired. Trump would have done it differently. He would have instructed the suspect to stop running and face him, then shot the suspect from the front. Shooting someone in the back is usually considered cowardly. Especially if they are unarmed. Omalu (the doctor who did a private autopsy on Clark) said that Clark “was not facing the officers” when he was killed. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Clark’s family who spoke before Omalu on Friday, said the autopsy findings contradicted the police narrative of Clark’s death. Six of the eight shots struck Clark in the back, while a seventh bullet hit him “slightly to the side of his body, but to the back of the side,” Omalu said. ---------- ---------- The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness Post Nation Stephon Clark was shot eight times, mostly in his back, according to autopsy requested by his family by Mark Berman March 30 at 3:07 PM How the Stephon Clark shooting unfolded Body camera and helicopter footage provides more information of the night Sacramento police shot and killed Stephon Clark, an unarmed father of two. (Joyce Koh/The Washington Post) Stephon Clark, the unarmed 22-year-old killed by Sacramento police officers earlier this month, was shot eight times, with most of the bullets hitting him in the back, according to an independent autopsy requested by his family’s attorneys. Bullets struck Clark in the neck, back and thigh, breaking bones and piercing his lung, said Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist. The bullets combined to make Clark “bleed massively,” Omalu said. “His death wasn’t instantaneous,” Omalu, who is best known for his role in highlighting concussive damage to football players, said at a news conference Friday. Instead, Omalu said, “Death took about three to 10 minutes.” Omalu announced his findings amid continuing public anger over Clark’s death. A day earlier, hundreds of mourners gathered to grieve for Clark at an emotional funeral that alluded to the tensions lingering in the community. Clark, a black man and a father of two, was fatally shot on March 18 by Sacramento police officers. Police in the California capital said they were responding that night to a call about someone breaking into vehicles. The shooting was captured on footage recorded by body cameras and a helicopter video. This footage showed Clark running to the back yard of his grandmother’s house, where officers fired 20 times at him. Officials have not said how many times they believe Clark was struck. The officers said they fired thinking Clark had a gun, but police have since said he was holding only an iPhone. Omalu said that Clark “was not facing the officers” when he was killed. Benjamin Crump, an attorney for Clark’s family who spoke before Omalu on Friday, said the autopsy findings contradicted the police narrative of Clark’s death. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the autopsy findings or Crump’s comment Friday. Six of the eight shots struck Clark in the back, while a seventh bullet hit him “slightly to the side of his body, but to the back of the side,” Omalu said. [ Sharpton joins hundreds of mourners to demand justice for Stephon Clark amid outrage over fatal police shooting ] “You could reasonably conclude that he received seven gunshot wounds from his back,” said Omalu, who conducted his autopsy on Tuesday and finished his report Wednesday. Omalu said all seven of these bullets could have been fatal on their own. An eighth bullet that struck Clark in the thigh suggested that the 22-year-old “was either on the ground or falling close to the ground” when that shot hit him, Omalu said. While he spoke, Omalu pointed to a diagram of the autopsy findings, which showed that most of the bullets struck Clark on the right side of his body, including one that appeared to hit him near his armpit. Omalu’s news conference served as a grim reminder of the devastation gunfire can wreak upon the human body. A bullet that struck Clark’s right arm shattered his bone “into tiny bits,” Omalu said. Another injured his spinal cord; others “perforated” his chest cavity and lungs, he said. The Sacramento County Coroner’s Office did not immediately respond to a message seeking details on Clark’s autopsy earlier Friday. County records showed only the date of Clark’s death and described him as a 22-year-old black man. [ ‘Our city is hurting’: Protesters swarm downtown Sacramento following deadly police shooting ] Clark is one of at least 269 people fatally shot by police so far this year, according to The Washington Post’s database tracking such deaths. Since The Post began to track these shootings in January 2015, the Sacramento police have fatally shot six people. Including Clark, five of the six have been black men. The release of the video footage capturing Clark’s death has given way to repeated protests in Sacramento. Demonstrators have blocked fans from entering NBA games, marched on the city’s streets and gathered Tuesday night at a City Council meeting to protest. Stevonte Clark, wearing a shirt with his brother’s face on it, sat at the council’s dais during the meeting and chanted his brother’s name. Mayor Darrell Steinberg, in an interview the following day, said he was “extremely conscious” of the concerns many have expressed regarding police accountability in recent years. “There is deep pain and anguish” in Sacramento, he said. “It’s our job to bear some of that pain, and to help translate the anguish and grieving and the historic pain [of black communities] into tangible and real change.” Mourners hug before funeral services for Stephon Clark on Thursday. (Jeff Chiu/AP) Clark’s relatives and civil rights leaders have called for full transparency in the investigation into his death as well as charges for the two officers involved. Just under 1,000 people are shot and killed by police officers each year, according to The Post’s database. Just a handful of those shootings each year lead to criminal charges, and convictions are even more rare, which has prompted intense criticism from civil rights activists across the country. The Sacramento police department is conducting an investigation into Clark’s death, while the Sacramento County district attorney’s office is also conducting its own review. Earlier this week, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) and Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn announced that the state Department of Justice would provide independent oversight of the police investigation into the shooting. [ ESSAY: Police are still killing black people. Why isn’t it news anymore? ] That announcement came the same day that Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said his office would not pursue criminal charges against two Baton Rouge police officers who fatally shot Alton Sterling in 2016, one of many that have prompted intense protests nationwide in recent years. Hahn said he had confidence in his department’s ability to investigate the shooting but felt that, given “the extremely high emotions, anger and hurt in our city,” it was best for the community and the police force alike to have the state step in. “Our city is at a critical point right now, and I believe this will … help build faith and confidence in the investigation from our community,” Hahn said. Alex Horton contributed to this report, which was first published at 2:17 p.m. and has been updated. Edited on Mar 30, 2018, 12:48pm | |
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| 03-30-18 12:18pm - 2459 days | #323 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Politics as usual: US Attorney General Sessions is head of Justice Department. He is working with an investigation into the FBI and Justice Department for any wrongdoings. As head of the Justice Department, Sessions should be investigated for any crimes committed under his leadership. Maybe now would be a good time to fire Sessions, until the public has confidence in the integrity of the Justice Department. Donald Trump, do not hesitate to fire a man who might have committed crimes. You know your sworn duty. You were elected on campaign promises to clean the swamp in Washington. Start cleaning. ---------- ---------- Politics U.S. prosecutor reviewing Republican complaints against FBI: Sessions Reuters By Sarah N. Lynch,Reuters 20 hours ago By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions revealed that Utah's top federal prosecutor is investigating a variety of Republican allegations of misconduct at the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to a letter to lawmakers released on Thursday. However, Sessions stopped short of appointing a second special counsel, despite repeated requests by Republican lawmakers to do so, saying he wanted to wait for the results of the review from John Huber, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah. Democrats in Congress have repeatedly criticized Republican requests for a special counsel, saying they are merely a tactic to distract from and undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Huber's review covers a wide range of issues that Republicans have complained about since last year, from how the FBI handled investigations related to Hillary Clinton, to claims that the FBI made missteps when it sought a warrant to conduct surveillance on a former adviser to Donald Trump's 2016 election campaign. Sessions' announcement on Huber comes just one day after the Justice Department's inspector general revealed that he too would be reviewing whether the FBI and Justice Department followed the law when they applied for the surveillance warrant on Carter Page, who briefly served as a national security adviser to Trump's campaign. A Justice Department spokesman said Huber first began investigating various claims in the fall of 2017. "Mr. Huber is conducting his work from outside the Washington, D.C. area and in cooperation with the inspector general," Sessions wrote to Senator Charles Grassley, Congressman Bob Goodlatte and Congressman Trey Gowdy, who all chair committees that are conducting probes into alleged FBI abuses. He added: "I receive regular updates from Mr. Huber and upon the conclusion of his review, will receive recommendations as to whether ... any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel." (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; editing by Grant McCool and Tom Brown) | |
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| 03-30-18 11:38am - 2459 days | #322 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The Washington Post Democracy Dies in Darkness The Plum Line Opinion The Trump presidency: On track to becoming the most corrupt in U.S. history? by Paul Waldman January 16, 2018 (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) Is Donald Trump the most corrupt president in American history? We may not be able to give him that title quite yet — after all, he’s only been president for a year. But he sure is working hard at it. In the endless outpouring of craziness emerging from this administration, where allegations that the president of the United States paid a porn star $130,000 in hush money to keep quiet about an adulterous affair get almost no media attention, you may have missed some recent stories that go to the heart of the conduct of Trump and his administration. So let’s round them up: A report out today from Public Citizen details how foreign governments, corporations and trade associations have been patronizing Trump’s properties since he took office. You might say, “Well there’s not necessarily any quid pro quo there,” which is true. But it’s also true that everyone knows that Trump is a man of uncommon greed and pettiness, and if you’re coming to Washington or holding an event, you might as well line Trump’s pockets while you do it, whether you’re the government of Saudi Arabia or the American Petroleum Institute, as a gesture of good will that might pay off later. As an Asian diplomat told The Post right after the election, “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor’?” A review by BuzzFeed of all Trump Organization condominium sales since the 1980s shows that 1,300 sales totaling $1.5 billion were made in cash by anonymous shell companies. “Those two characteristics signal that a buyer may be laundering money, the Treasury Department has said in a series of statements since 2016.” According to an investigation by USA Today, “President Trump’s companies sold more than $35 million in real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive shell companies that obscure buyers’ identities.” The use of these shell companies exploded once Trump became the Republican nominee for president. “In the two years before the nomination, 4 percent of Trump buyers utilized the tactic. In the year after, the rate skyrocketed to about 70 percent.” Eric Trump has repeatedly claimed that his foundation, recently rechristened “Curetivity,” is able to hold fundraising events at Trump properties for free, but as the Daily Beast reports, this is false. In 2016, Curetivity paid Trump properties nearly $150,000, meaning that if you went to a charity golf tournament the group held, part of your tax-deductible contribution went into the president’s bank account. McClatchy reports that foreign governments in places such as Indonesia and Panama have suddenly become eager to accommodate Trump properties, doing things like building roads and sewer systems to maximize the value of a property. “And in other countries, governments have donated public land, approved permits and eased environmental regulations for Trump-branded developments, creating a slew of potential conflicts as foreign leaders make investments that can be seen as gifts or attempts to gain access to the American president through his sprawling business empire.” That’s just what’s been reported in the past two weeks. Read These Comments newsletter The best conversations on The Washington Post At this point we should say that there are a variety of activities that might go under the heading of “corruption.” We used to refer to it as graft — using the offices of government for financial gain, whether through bribery or other means — but it doesn’t stop there. Actions can be corrupt even if they’re legal, and we also talk about corruption in a broader sense that encompasses non-financial wrongdoing as well. Many would consider Richard Nixon the most corrupt president in history, but his most serious crimes didn’t involve lining his pockets. He twisted the apparatus of government to his own personal ends, ends that were often about self-protection. 3:14 Manila Trump partner still touting ties to U.S. president A Trump real estate project illustrates the questions that can arise about the intersection of President Trump’s business interests and his work as president. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) What distinguishes Trump from all his predecessors is the fact that he barely conceals his intentions. After a lifetime spent not only manipulating the economic, legal, and political systems to increase his wealth but publicly bragging about his ability to do so, there was little doubt that he’s continue in the same vein as president. He refused to divest himself from his businesses, then held a press conference standing next to piles of what were almost certainly stacks of blank paper inside blank folders that he claimed were the “documents” he had to sign to effect the transfer of those businesses to his sons. But as the director of revenue management for the Trump Hotel in Washington wrote to an acquaintance in an email obtained by the Daily Beast, “DJT is supposed to be out of the business and passed on to his sons, but he’s definitely still involved.” This too surprises no one. That’s not to mention that the Republican tax bill could barely have been designed better to maximize the benefits to Trump himself, particularly the dramatic cut in taxes on “pass-through” companies, which will be worth many millions of dollars to the president, because the Trump Organization is essentially a collection of hundreds of pass-throughs. Of course, we don’t know exactly how much he’ll gain, because unlike every other president and presidential candidate in decades, Trump continues to refuse to release his tax returns. This despite the fact that there is no president in history whose finances are in more urgent need of public examination. Even if we don’t know all the details, we know that Trump and his family are making out like bandits. And we know that he has set a tone that those below him will take to heart, one that says conflicts of interest are no big deal, ethics are for losers, and you should grab what you can. As historian Robert Dallek put it last November: “Like Nixon, Trump has created a culture in his administration in which people feel comfortable with corruption. Trump himself has shown a complete indifference to democratic norms, to rule of law, and that sends a pretty clear signal to the people beneath him.” So it’s no accident that, for instance, one Cabinet member after another seems to think that flying commercial is for suckers. And I promise you, before this presidency is over we will hear many more stories of underlings who figured that there are no more rules and their time in government is a great time to get rich. Before Trump came along, the idea that any president of either party would use the presidency as a nonstop business opportunity was almost too absurd to contemplate. Now most people find it barely worthy of getting upset about, especially when there’s so much else going on. But if the Democrats take back one or both houses of Congress in the fall, they should make investigating the corruption of President Trump and this administration a top priority. Only if it’s exposed and there are consequences can we reinstate the norm that presidents ought to have a higher motivation than using the Oval Office to make themselves richer. Paul Waldman is a contributor to The Plum Line blog, and a senior writer at The American Prospect. | |
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| 03-30-18 11:31am - 2459 days | #321 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Basically, what I'm trying to say is that Donald Trump is not a nice man. And that he picks people to serve who use their office for their own gain. And that are mainly not qualified to serve. And that Trump is not qualified to serve. Many people believe that Trump's administration is on track to become the most corrupt in US history. No joke. Not fake news. | |
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| 03-30-18 09:14am - 2459 days | #319 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: Trump hates Amazon. (Maybe because Jeff Bezos has more money than Trump has.) Trump attacks Amazon for using the United States Post Office. Maybe Trump should shut down Amazon, causing tremendous losses for Jeff Bezos. And maybe Trump should shut down the USPS, for losing money. After all, Trump is a famous businessman. Whose businesses have often used bankruptcy. So why not force the USPS into bankruptcy? And stop it from losing money? People should stop mocking President Trump. He is the President. No matter how many stupid mistakes he might make. No matter how much he might lie and steal. Until he is tried and found guilty for criminal activity, he is an innocent man. ------ ------ Politics Donald Trump Gets Mocked After Showing He Really Doesn’t Know What The Post Office Does HuffPost Ed Mazza,HuffPost 7 hours ago President Donald Trump on Thursday returned to one of his favorite targets, President Donald Trump on Thursday returned to one of his favorite targets, attacking online retail giant Amazon over taxes, its effect on brick-and-mortar stores and one other thing that caused some head-scratching. Trump said Amazon uses “our Postal System as their Delivery Boy.” That has people wondering: Isn’t the United States Postal Service supposed to be in the delivery business? It’s in their mission: “The Postal Service mission is to provide a reliable, efficient, trusted and affordable universal delivery service that connects people and helps businesses grow.” The USPS says on its website that it’s “the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation,” and notes that it delivers 47 percent of the world’s mail. Trump seems to imply that the company’s heavy use of the USPS is, as he tweeted, “causing tremendous loss to the U.S.” While the USPS has for years been losing money, including a $2.7 billion net loss for the 2017 fiscal year, package delivery is one of the few bright spots. “That’s actually the solution right now,” former Postmaster General Jack Potter told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s well justified that they deliver those packages, and they make money on it.” While Trump has attacked Amazon for its use of the USPS before, its contract by law is reviewed and has to be profitable, CBS News notes. That has people wondering what, exactly, is wrong with Amazon using the USPS as a “delivery boy.” This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 03-30-18 08:22am - 2459 days | #318 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Fake news: This opinion piece is obviously slanted against President Trump's fine pick for National Security Advisor. Read the opinion piece with an open mind. Are you in favor of a safe, pro-active United States of America? Then give John Bolton your full support. Here's a perfect strategy for Trump, right out of The Art of the Deal: Invite the leader of North Korea for peace talks to Washington, D.C. While he is in Washington, D.C., arrest him as a terrorist. Then bomb the hell out of North Korea, which is one of the biggest threats to the US. Then waterboard the bastard until he confesses his plans. Trump will zoom in the polls, for his cunning and strength. ------- ------- https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-state...nal-security-advisor Stephen Pomper Program Director, United States President Trump’s announcement that John Bolton would become his third national security advisor hit foreign policy circles like a minor earthquake last week. Bolton had long been rumoured to be waiting in the wings to take over from H.R. McMaster, who clashed both with the president and with powerful principals like Secretary of Defense James Mattis, but the reality was still bracing for anyone familiar with Bolton’s long and controversial professional history. Bolton, of course, gained notoriety in the George W. Bush administration where he advocated for the disastrous Iraq war and generated such a toxic reputation for twisting intelligence and abusing subordinates at the State Department that a Republican-controlled Senate declined to confirm him as U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. He ultimately received a recess appointment, and during his brief tenure representing the United States at the United Nations appeared particularly to relish his run-ins with U.S. allies. Even fresher, though, is the profile Bolton has gained in recent years as a media commentator. The term “bomb thrower” has rarely seemed more apt. Indeed, Bolton’s 2015 New York Times op-ed on how to arrest Iran’s nuclear program ran under the title “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”. And Bolton did not just fix his sights on Iran. He beat the war drums if anything louder when it came to North Korea. In September, he told Fox News that “the only diplomatic option left is to end the North Korean regime by effectively having the South take it over”. And in February, he penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal suggesting that North Korea’s possession of nuclear weapons already posed a sufficient threat to the United States to justify the use of military force – a logic that could be used to justify an attack by any country at any time on any nuclear weapons state, including the United States. " It is less than surprising that the Bolton announcement unleashed a wave of mainstream commentary that fell largely on a spectrum from worried to panicked. " Against this backdrop, it is less than surprising that the Bolton announcement unleashed a wave of mainstream commentary that fell largely on a spectrum from worried to panicked, though Bolton got some equally predictable support from pro-Trump editorial pages and broadcast outlets. Still, amid the flurry of handwringing, a number of thoughtful commentators emerged to offer deeper and more textured pictures of Bolton, and share a more sanguine perspective on his appointment. Unfortunately, these contrarian arguments fail to wrestle with what is most alarming about Bolton’s past conduct, and only reinforce the burden that will soon fall on people and institutions outside the executive branch – Congress especially – to help steer the country away from the risk of calamitous war. Consider, for example, the following arguments: Bolton is smart, deep, and complex. Start with David Bosco’s useful glimpses into Bolton as a highly intelligent individual with sophisticated views about the United Nations, international law, and great power dynamics who had some significant achievements in multilateral diplomacy. These observations are all fair enough, but unfortunately, none of them answers the core concerns that have been raised about Bolton over the years. Those concerns tend to be less about intellectual ability, or even the capacity to play against type, and more about character and temperament. The record from Bolton’s Bush-era tenure at the State Department is especially damning in this respect, suggesting that he bullied subordinates, sought to have analysts reassigned when they disagreed with him, and developed stratagems for sneaking exaggerated claims about threats emanating from places like Syria and Cuba into official statements. Others called him out on at least some of his transgressions, but he was more junior then. Who will perform this role when he is the national security advisor and answers only to the president? " There is a line between deterrence and aggression, and it is not at all clear which side of it Bolton will land on. " Bolton’s hawkishness will help deter North Korea. Writing in the National Review, David French offers an alternate perspective. He seeks to make a virtue of Bolton’s hawkishness toward North Korea, arguing that bellicosity can have a useful deterrent effect. Certainly, there can be no objection to the United States letting its adversaries know that it will return fire with withering fire. That is the essence of deterrence. But Bolton’s threats against North Korea go beyond deterrence. Bolton has threatened “pre-emptive war” (as though a war that would claim, at minimum, tens of thousands of lives, can appropriately be called “pre-emptive”) and he has called for regime change. Not only that, he has a record that suggests he is serious. It is hard to identify another U.S. foreign policy figure of his prominence who has called so consistently and unabashedly for regime change in so many countries (Syria, Libya, North Korea, Iran, and Iraq to name five), while refusing to recognise the Iraq intervention for the disaster it was. Put another way, there is a line between deterrence and aggression, and it is not at all clear which side of it Bolton will land on. The Trump administration has been sabre-rattling for months already and it has worked. This brings us finally to Stephen Hadley, who served as national security advisor in George W. Bush’s second term, and who over the weekend offered a different take on Bolton’s hawkishness. Hadley sought to calm the waters by noting that Bolton cannot himself start a war – only the president can – and also defended the Trump administration’s overall approach to the peninsula by observing that “rattling of the sword with respect to North Korea” had helped persuade China that the status quo was not sustainable. Perhaps, but the problem with brinksmanship is that over time it grows stale. The longer a country makes threats without taking action, the greater the risk that those threats will appear empty. Bolton will be coming in after a year of sabre-rattling and will almost certainly feel the need to up the ante. Perhaps he will do that by asking the Department of Defense to produce new strike plans. Perhaps he will do it by seeking a State Department legal opinion that backs up the tendentious theory he offered in the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps he will expand on the veiled threat he is already made that if the upcoming summit fails to meet unrealistic expectations for denuclearisation then the parties will be on a fast-track to war. Any one of these steps would inch the parties closer to the brink of actual war by making it that much easier for an undisciplined president to make a decision that could literally plunge the world into conflict. Taken together, these arguments offer little if any counterweight to the more alarmist literature about Bolton’s appointment and only underscore the conclusion that this was a genuinely dangerous pick. Unfortunately, there are few senior administration officials – perhaps only James Mattis – with the inclination and the gravitas to check him as he steers U.S. policy toward increasingly perilous waters. The answer, then, must lie with Congress. High-profile Senate Republicans who have already expressed concern about the administration’s approach to North Korea – for example, Corker, Sullivan, and Cornyn – are in a particularly strong place to make a difference. A good first step would be to hold public hearings that highlight the unthinkable humanitarian and economic costs of conflict. Another would be to put down the firmest possible legislative marker that military action other than to defend a genuine armed attack or imminent threat is both illegitimate and unlawful. Those who are inclined to wait and see how Bolton performs in the job should think again. His words and his record are more than clear. There are no other reliable guardrails. It is time for Congress to step up. | |
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| 03-30-18 07:29am - 2459 days | #317 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Perhaps you are right when you say that Communism needs to be implemented by a tyrant. That's why Trump as President of the US will possibly bomb North Korea. And maybe Russia as well. We need to make the world safe for Democracy. And these countries are serious threats to the United States. And who cares about the millions of lives that might be lost? After all, you can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs. And Trump (and his new war-pro National Security advisor) are just the people to take care of business and keep the world safe for Democracy. So let's man up and start building our personal bomb shelters. Trump, as President, already has his prepared. | |
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| 03-29-18 09:59pm - 2459 days | #315 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
RE: Marx and Engels wrote about a supposedly inevitable class struggle between labor and capital that would lead to socialism and then to communism. They wrote about what they believed, or hoped, would happen over time. But they were writing about what they wanted to happen. That we would all live in a better world. Instead, we live in reality, where man is flawed, not perfect. And society is not perfect. Blaming communism for the crimes of Stalin is wrong: He used "communism" as a tool to become a tyrant. The leader of North Korea is a tyrant. People are not perfect. And some are less perfect than others. That's what I'm saying. I'm not saying Communism or Democracy are perfect solutions. They are theories. I'm not a communist or socialist. Never have been. Edited on Mar 29, 2018, 10:28pm | |
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| 03-29-18 09:58pm - 2459 days | #314 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Utopia is theory. Communism or Socialism, in theory, is for the good of the common man. But we live in the real world, where, in reality, man is not perfect. So the countries that were labelled communist countries in the past have not been heaven on earth. That's what I am saying. In theory, communism would be where everyone shares equally. In practice, not everyone shares equally. That's what I'm saying. Utopia is a dream, where everyone lives perfectly happy lives. In reality, we don't live perfectly happy lives. On a practical basis, not even Donald Trump or Vladimir Putin lead perfectly happy lives. They have happy moments, and some disappointments, along the way. Is Russia still considered a communist country? Is China still considered a communist country? Is North Korea considered a communist country? A communist country is a label, because there are no "communist" countries in the world. By that, I mean the rulers and population do not live in Utopia, where everyone shares equally. Also note: I am not a political science expert. I don't know if "experts" use the term "communism" to apply to Russia, China, or North Korea any more. Or if the leaders or populations of those countries consider the countries "communist". My belief is that none of those countries were ever communist. That was just a label that was used. The rulers and the population did not share equally. | |
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| 03-29-18 03:20pm - 2460 days | #311 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Communism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In political and social sciences, communism (from Latin communis, "common, universal")[1][2] is the philosophical, social, political, and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of the communist society, which is a socioeconomic order structured upon the common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money[3][4] and the state.[5][6] ----- ----- Communism, in theory, is wonderful: common ownership of the means of production, the absence of social classes, money, and the state. In practice, it has been used by rulers (Stalin, etc.) to commit crimes against humanity. But that's because communism is theory. Maybe the hippies tried to put it into practice. But on the level of states or countries, the rulers were rulers, not communists. Even though they might have chanted the slogans of communism. Read George Orwell's Animal Farm. That's communism on a practical level. Because the leaders and the regime don't follow communistic theory: they use the theory for their own benefit. | |
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| 03-29-18 11:48am - 2460 days | #309 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Michael Cohen demands Stormy Daniels retract and apologize for a claim she did not make Cohen responded almost immediately to Daniels' 60 Minutes appearance — by focusing on something she didn't say. Judd Legum Mar 26, 2018, 9:45 am Shortly after Stormy Daniels’ appearance on 60 Minutes Sunday night, Michael Cohen — Donald Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer — released a letter through his lawyer demanding the adult film star retract and apologize for her statements. The letter focuses on the claim that Cohen “was responsible for an alleged thug who supposedly visited [Daniels], while she was with her daughter, and made an alleged threat” against her. The letter demands that Daniels “immediately retract and apologize through national media” for making such a claim and “make clear [she has] no facts or evidence whatsoever that my client had anything whatsoever to do with this alleged thug.” There’s one problem with the letter: Daniels never made such a claim. In the interview that aired Sunday, Daniels — whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford — said she was approached by a man in a Las Vegas parking lot who warned her to stop talking about Donald Trump and threatened her life. The alleged incident occurred in 2011, shortly after Daniels gave an interview to Life & Style magazine about her affair with Trump. The magazine ultimately did not run the story after receiving a legal threat from Cohen. But Daniels did not not suggest that the man who threatened her was sent by Michael Cohen. According to the transcript of Daniels’ discussion of the incident during the show: Stormy Daniels: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T– taking, you know, the seats facing backwards in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin’ all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story.” And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom.” And then he was gone. Anderson Cooper: You took it as a direct threat? Stormy Daniels: Absolutely. Stormy Daniels: I was rattled. I remember going into the workout class. And my hands are shaking so much, I was afraid I was gonna– drop her. Anderson Cooper: Did you ever see that person again? Stormy Daniels: No. But I– if I did, I would know it right away. Anderson Cooper: You’d be able to– you’d be able to recognize that person? Stormy Daniels: 100%. Even now, all these years later. If he walked in this door right now, I would instantly know. Anderson Cooper: Did you go to the police? Stormy Daniels: No. Anderson Cooper: Why? Stormy Daniels: Because I was scared. Note that there is no mention of Cohen, much less a claim that he was involved. It’s unclear when the letter was written, but Trump reportedly had dinner with Cohen on Saturday night. Oddly, Cohen’s letter also expresses his belief that the 2011 incident never occurred. It’s unclear why Cohen would know, since he professes to have had nothing to do with it. There are, however, other documented instances of Cohen threatening people who speak out about Trump. When Tim Mak of the Daily Beast was reporting an article about Ivana Trump, who once wrote in a book that she was raped by Trump, Cohen’s threat was not subtle: “I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we’re in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know,” Cohen said. “So I’m warning you, tread very fucking lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be fucking disgusting. You understand me?” Megyn Kelly, who previously worked at Fox News and now works at NBC News, recounted in her book being threatened by Cohen. After Kelly asked Trump a pointed question at a presidential debate, Cohen retweeted a message encouraging Trump supporters to “gut her.” While Daniels did not name Cohen as the source of the threat during her Sunday appearance, her attorney, Michael Avenatti, was less circumspect. Appearing on CNN on Monday morning, Avenatti said he had “no doubt” that Cohen or someone else close to Trump was responsible for the 2011 threat against Daniels. | |
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| 03-29-18 11:33am - 2460 days | #308 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
The law is a bunch of nonsense. Created by lawyers to make lots of money for themselves. Which is the way of capitalism: legally steal as much for yourself as you can, while claiming you are working for the common good. I was told that when you went to buy a car, any verbal promises made by the salesman were worthless: they have no legal weight. Any promises have to be in a written contract, for the promise to have weight, or be valid. But this article states that a contract may be verbal, and still be legal. But I've read instances where a verbal promise in business is not binding (not legal or enforceable). And a handshake deal, although common in the movies as binding, is not worth spit. (The movies are fake news, which Donald Trump is an expert at. Maybe that's why Donald hates Hollywood, and says Meryl Streep is a terrible actress. Because Trump never won an Emmy--and he feels he should have.) ------- ------- Entertainment Trump’s lawyer has a lawyer and he just made the Stormy Daniels situation a lot worse thinkprogress.org 4 hours ago The scandal surrounding Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress who claims to have had an affair with Donald Trump, just got worse. It started when David Schwartz, an attorney for Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen, appeared on CNN last night. Schwartz told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Trump “was not aware of” the non-disclosure contract signed by Stormy Daniels and “wasn’t told about it.” This is a big problem for Trump. Daniels’ attorney, Michael Avenatti, argues that the absence of Trump’s signature on the non-disclosure agreement renders the contract invalid. But while this might be true, it is not a slam-dunk argument. You can have a binding contract without any written document. But there are three core elements to a binding contract: 1. offer, 2. acceptance and 3. consideration (something of value). While you can have a binding contract without a a signature you cannot be a party to a contract that you don’t even know about — knowing about the contract is literally what being “a party to a contract” means. That is because you have to have knowledge of the offer and knowingly accept the offer. Trump, by Schwartz’s own admission, did neither of those things. Schwartz’s argument is that there was a binding contract between Daniels and EC LLC, the shell corporation set up by Michael Cohen, and Trump was a “third party beneficiary” of the contract. The problem for Schwartz, Cohen, and Trump is that the contract was not constructed in a way to make that possible. Part of the inducement for Daniels to sign the contract, explicitly, were things that only Donald Trump himself (referred to in the contract, and by Schwartz, as “DD”) could provide. The contract explicitly states, in Section 4.3, that as a “material inducement” for Daniels to sign the contract Trump agrees not to sue Daniels in civil court or provide her name to the authorities unless asked. This relates to any claims Trump might have against Daniels for the dissemination of “the Property” — defined as photos, videos or other evidence of their alleged affair. It explicitly notes that “each Party” is “executing this Agreement in reliance thereon.” In other words, the promise by Trump to release Daniels from legal liability is not a trivial part of the contract. This is the “consideration” part of the contract. It’s essential. But if Trump is not a party to the contract — and Schwartz has admitted he was not — Trump cannot provide such a warranty. Thus, Daniels was “materially induced” to sign a contract with a false promise. In other words, Schwartz’s definitive statement that Trump was not a party greatly increases the chances that a court will invalidate this contract. Even if a court decided the contract is valid somehow, Schwartz’s claim that the president is not a party to it does significant damage to Trump. The case is now in federal court. Trump and Cohen are seeking to avoid having to sit for a deposition, or be subject to additional discovery, by pushing the dispute back into secret arbitration. But the contract only allows Trump, not Cohen’s shell corporation, to resolve disputes in arbitration under section 5.13 and 5.2 of the agreement. Trump can’t take advantage of an arbitration agreement that he is not a party to and knows nothing about. This problems all stems from Cohen’s attempts to thread this legal needle. He wanted to create a contract that prevented Daniels from talking about her alleged relationship with Trump, but also wanted to simultaneously claim Trump wasn’t involved at all. But binding your client to an agreement, and paying $130,000 to seal the deal without telling him or her about it, is a violation of a lawyer’s professional responsibility — and could result in Cohen being sanctioned or disbarred. So now Cohen has a lawyer of his own and he’s trying to protect his client by claiming Cohen did not bind Trump, but just created a separate agreement between a shell corporation and Daniels. This isn’t working out well and may end up making Trump’s problems much worse. | |
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| 03-28-18 06:47pm - 2461 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
ON TOPIC: Woman Arrested After Raunchy Come-On To Easter Bunny. Rules of behavior: Do not make out with the Easter Bunny (in a public place). Also, being drunk in public can get you arrested. However, most PU members have higher standards than the woman in the article, and would only molest the Easter Bunny in the privacy of their home. --------- --------- Woman Arrested After Raunchy Come-On To Easter Bunny HuffPost David Moye,HuffPost 6 hours ago Trying to make out with the Easter Bunny isn’t egg-zactly appropriate behavior ― especially when kids are watching ― but that’s what police said an Ohio woman did. Ladonna Hughett, 54, was arrested on Saturday after police said she lewdly propositioned and grabbed an Easter Bunny working at a carousel park in Mansfield. When Hughett posed for a photo with the rabbit, witnesses said she inappropriately grabbed the costumed character and made suggestive comments within earshot of families at the indoor park, according to Columbus station WLW. Someone called Mansfield police. “We received a report from a citizen, an unusual report from a citizen, that called us to the Richland Carrousel Park of an intoxicated female doing some lewd acts on the Easter Bunny,” Assistant Chief Keith Porch told the TV station. Arriving officers found Hughett on the carousel, the station reported. According to an arrest report obtained by The Smoking Gun, officers said Hughett seemed to be drunk with slurred speech, bloodshot eyes, and “a generally wobbly demeanor.” Hughett was charged with public drunkenness and booked into the county jail. She was released eight hours later, according to WLW. Police didn’t charge her with assaulting the Easter Bunny. Hughett’s Facebook page seemed amazingly prophetic, featuring a comment that she ″can be a handfull but most of the time i am just a idiot,” according to Metro.com. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 03-28-18 12:59pm - 2461 days | #307 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
Trump Lawyer Floated Pardons Of Michael Flynn And Paul Manafort: Report HuffPost Doha Madani,HuffPost 2 hours 2 minutes ago John Dowd, the lawyer for President Donald Trump who resigned last week, floated potential pardons of former Trump advisers Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation closed in, according to a New York Times report published Wednesday. Three unnamed sources told the Times that Dowd discussed offering presidential pardons for Flynn, the president’s former national security adviser, and Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, as Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election mounted. Dowd had discussions with attorneys for Flynn and Manafort shortly after he took over as Trump’s personal lawyer last summer, according to the Times. Dowd reportedly told Flynn’s attorney, Robert K. Kelner, that Trump felt the case against Flynn was flimsy and that the president was prepared to pardon him. Flynn has since pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian government. After news of the plea broke in December, Dowd told The Wall Street Journal that he was “not worried about it.” The former Trump lawyer spoke to Manafort’s legal representation about a pardon in October, before Manafort was indicted on charges of conspiracy and money laundering in connection with the Russia investigation, the Times reported. Read more at The New York Times. Dowd resigned from Trump’s legal team on Thursday as he felt the president was increasingly ignoring his advice, sources told the Times and The Washington Post. President Donald Trump has attacked special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation a number of times. When asked about the reports during a Wednesday press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied any conversation of pardons. “I would refer you back to the statement from [White House lawyer] Ty Cobb and the report you’re asking about, in which he said, ‘I’ve only been asked about pardons by the press and have routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under discussion or consideration at the White House,’” Sanders told reporters in the briefing room. The White House has repeatedly denied any collusion with Russia in regard to the 2016 election. Trump has attacked Mueller’s investigation a number of times, especially as Mueller increases pressure on the president. Mueller issued subpoenas to the Trump Organization demanding documents referencing Russia earlier this month. The president’s aggression toward Mueller’s investigation has prompted a number of concerns that Trump will push to fire the special counsel. Nine Democratic senators signed a letter Tuesday urging senior officials at the Justice Department to publicly defend Mueller against the White House. Related: Trump's Top Lawyer for the Special Counsel Probe Reportedly Resigns This story has been updated to include comments from White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and more background on the Russia investigation. This article originally appeared on HuffPost. | |
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| 03-28-18 10:30am - 2461 days | #306 | |
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lk2fireone (0)
Active User Posts: 3,618 Registered: Nov 14, '08 Location: CA |
You need to add Trump and his administration which has abuse of the system as its core principle. And for Trump specifically, before he became President, his business style was abuse, intimidation, and legal thuggery. | |
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