The FBI office that handles employee discipline has recommended firing the bureau’s former deputy director over allegations that he authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to a reporter and misled investigators when asked about it — though Justice Department officials are still reviewing the matter and have not come to a final decision, a person familiar with the case said.
…
Justice Department Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz has for some time been working on a report that blasts McCabe for allowing two high-ranking bureau officials to sit down with the Wall Street Journal as the news outlet prepared a report in 2016 on an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s family foundation, then misleading the inspector general’s team about his actions. A person familiar with the matter said Horowitz’s findings are what sparked the Office of Professional Responsibility’s recommendation, which was first reported by the New York Times. Horowitz’s report has not been released.
…
Background briefings with reporters are common in Washington, particularly when reporters have information that officials feel compelled to respond to or add context to. In this instance, though, it might have been viewed as inappropriate because the discussion was focused on an ongoing criminal investigation.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, on Wednesday demanded that the Pentagon rein in “excessive compensation” for the CEOs of defense contractors.
“What kind of message does it send when a defense contractor is paid 100 times more than the secretary of defense?” Sanders wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary James Mattis.
Sanders pointed to compensation for the CEOs of Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which amounted to roughly $20 million each. Taxpayer money, he said, accounted for over 90 percent of those companies’ revenues.
A Pentagon spokesman said the Defense Department has already begun some reforms, such as reorganizing the former office of acquisition, technology and logistics. […]
Follow-up to comments 210, 226, 479, 488, and comment 500. In other news, here is an analysis of Gary Cohn’s tax legacy now that he is being replaced by Kudlow:
Gary Cohn was only in the Trump administration 14 months. Yet, he managed to champion so-called tax reform which saddles Americans with an additional $1.5 trillion in debt. How do you load up $100 billion in debt on the backs of Americans taxpayers for every month you are on the job?
Adding insult to injury, for the all the promises he made regarding job and wage growth, there are no requirements for companies to add jobs or increase wages to receive tax cuts. That’s quite a legacy. […]
The lawsuit filed by adult film actress Stormy Daniels, which aims to dissolve a non-disclosure agreement preventing her from discussing an alleged affair with President Trump, has been given a hearing date […]
The hearing will be held on July 12 at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, according to court documents. […]
Link back to the beginning of the discussion about the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who may be fired just days before his pension would kick in (after 22 years of service).
Mike Pompeo, who is replacing Rex Tillerson as the Secretary of State, has taken positions identical to—and in some instances tougher than—the President’s on several pivotal issues. […]
“I don’t know if it’s a victory by the über-hawks, but it reflects a mind-set about how Trump sees the world. He relies on generals,” Boucher [former Ambassador Richard Boucher, a career diplomat who was the spokesman for three Secretaries of State, both Republican and Democratic] told me. “He’s looking for people who see every problem as a threat that needs to be dealt with by military force, rather than an issue that can be countered through diplomacy. There’s an over-all failure by this Administration to understand what diplomacy can do for the country—and the world.” […]
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus among the most knowledgeable people on the severity or potential effectiveness of the set of sanctions May announced today. Luke Harding calls the measures “modest” and “underwhelming” and thinks they’ll do little to deter Putin. Julia Ioffe tweeted: “On vacation with three other former Moscow correspondents. Four jaws dropped at the news of May’s retaliatory measures. This is, as they say, a BFD.” Others have had a similar response.
(I know I’ve been beating this drum for months now, but Ned Price brought it up on TV the other day – I think more measures were set in motion by Obama/Biden before they left office which might not yet have played out.)
PutinCon will take place two days before the upcoming Russian presidential “election,” which will fortify the dictator’s rule over at least the next six years. The event (which will be livestreamed at putincon.com*) will be the first ever to offer a true 360 of Putin’s character, KGB history, accomplices, policies, and Putin’s unraveling. The 25 speakers will include former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara, Estonian President Toomas Ilves, Magnitsky Act advocate and “Red Notice” author William Browder, “Mafia State” author and Guardian journalist Luke Harding, KGB scholar Amy Knight, former head of Ukraine’s state security service Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, neuroscientist James Fallon, and civil society organizer Vladimir Kara-Murza.
The program can be found here. Typical dearth of women. Also, it’s heavy on journalists and politicians and light on sociologists, psychologists, and historians. But looks like it could be interesting.
Perversely, as with Comey, the pretext for this would be that McCabe acted unfairly toward… Hillary Clinton.
Recall the main fault this IG report is supposed to have found with McCabe is that he authorized leaks to the Wall Street Journal suggesting FBI wanted to investigate the Clinton Foundation but was stymied by DOJ.
So, at least formally, the Trump Administration is taking a firm stand to punish the Deep State’s relentless efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton during the presidential election.
…Now one member stands accused of using chemical weapons on the sovereign soil of another member. The credibility of this council will not survive if we fail to hold Russia accountable.
The parents of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich have filed a lawsuit against Fox News over a retracted 2016 story that suggested he provided emails to WikiLeaks.
The suit filed in federal court by Joel and Mary Rich alleges that Fox News intentionally exploited the death of their son “through lies, misrepresentations, and half-truths” in a May 16, 2017, online story. The story said federal investigators had evidence Seth Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks before his death and could have provided DNC emails that were disseminated during the 2016 presidential campaign.
…
Rich’s parents say their son’s reputation was damaged by the story as Fox News host Sean Hannity and other conservative commentators raised the alternative narrative to counter assertions that the Russian government was responsible for the leaked DNC emails.
“No parent should ever have to live through what we have been forced to endure,” Rich’s parents said in a statement. “The pain and anguish that comes from seeing your murdered son’s life and legacy treated as a mere political football is beyond comprehension.”…
The behaviour of the Executive Branch in this affair takes me right back to 1982; Reagan and Al Haig and the Falklands. Rather a different cause at the base of it all, but the absence of backing for one’s closest ally was similarly shameful.
tomhsays
@ 17
Haley must want out. Considering that Sanders refused to even say the word “Russia” when questioned on the attacks today, calling the attack “reckless and indiscriminate,” it’s obvious Trump will never accuse Russia. Like Tillerson when he contradicted Trump, Haley is history.
I can think of a few motives for Haley. She could want out, especially since she was eyeing the Secretary of State job and wasn’t offered it and because she sees the way things are going with this “administration” and wants to get out with her dignity and reputation (relatively) intact. She could also be calculating that after the Tillerson firing Trump wouldn’t risk the fallout from firing her after she spoke out like this. She could well genuinely want to see serious actions taken against Putin – I haven’t seen any indication that she’s a Putin toady, and her day-to-day interactions at the UN can only have increased her sensitivity to Putin’s malevolence and danger. She’s scrappy and ambitious, and probably thinks standing up to Putin (and pushing Trump to do so), whatever the immediate consequence for her, will burnish her domestic and international reputation in the long run.
Now I have to rewind – Ari Melber just pointed out that Clarence Page has a Steal Your Face sticker on his phone and then the two of them and E.J. Dionne started quoting Dead lyrics and now I missed the whole PA-18 discussion.
Whoa, these are actually strong words (full statement at the link) – “White House: ‘The United States shares the United Kingdom’s assessment that Russia is responsible for the reckless nerve agent attack’.”
Importantly, however, no indication yet of any actual actions.
Reading through the statement again – “reckless” remains odd and weak; also, they say they stand by the expulsion of the diplomats as a “just response” without mentioning any of the other real or potential sanctions. This is the most minimal of the sanctions, so implying that it alone is proportional or sufficient and not discussing or announcing anything else is underplaying the situation. There needs to be intense pressure.
This was the last gasp of 10 years of successful electoral chicanery in Pennsylvania, and the Republicans couldn’t boot their candidate home even with $10 million pumped into the district from the national party and from its vast reservoir of PACs and dark money. They couldn’t organize it. They couldn’t buy it. And they couldn’t steal it. That pretty much eliminates all possible ways Republicans generally win elections these days, and bringing in the president* for a last-ditch manic episode didn’t work, either. Not even the crazy was enough.
WW2 Tweets from 1940: “New York Times comments on feeling across Europe today: ‘Once again a small nation relied on the help of the Western powers & paid dearly for her trust’.”
In 105 days of fighting, 24,923 Finns have been killed & 43,557 wounded. Red Army dead can only be estimated: 230,000-270,000, many frozen or starved in Arctic wilderness.
Looking at the map of captured Finnish territory, 1 Soviet general gloomily remarks: “We have won just enough land to bury our dead.”
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Gotta admire some reporters. Steve Kornacki, election statistics specialist for MSNBC, was up all night last night until the network finally declared Lamb the apparent winner at ~5:40 am ET. Then continued reporting on Morning Joe a little later.
I had noticed his left hand had had something on it, like a soft brace I wear when my carpal tunnel syndrome acts up. Turns out he had surgery later today for an injury for a bicycle accident prior to the overly long evening. I salute his dedication.
KGsays
The problem with that – and it was the same the other day – is that he’s not exactly taking a hard line himself, so it just comes across as partisan and somewhat nonsensical. From what I’m reading in the liveblog, he appears to be irritating and alienating pretty much everyone today with his suggestion that the Kremlin might not be to blame and that they should have provided Putin with a sample of the toxin. – SC@459
Agreed. And I agree with James Bloodworth in your link @462 that Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray are a malign influence on Corbyn. Both are upper-class Stalinists.
KGsays
SC@8,23
What was notably absent from May’s statement were any financial measures against Putin’s cronies, who have huge sums invested in the UK, much of it in real estate – so they can’t take it out. On the BBC this morning, there was an item interviewing a British financier (I didn’t get his name) and one of the BBC’s own economics team, which explained how deep (and old) links between the City of London (i.e., the UK’s financial elite) and the Russian elite are – going back to Soviet times, when the Soviets wanted somewhere to park their dollars out of reach of the Federal Reserve, and chose London. The item was full of the “dilemma” of whether the UK should risk actual financial damage in response to Putin attacking the country with chemical weapons. I’m sure Sergeant Nick Bailey fully appreciates this conundrum from his hospital bed.
Further on Corbyn – he could easily have outflanked May by demanding financial measures against the oligarchs, linking the lack of them to the donations to the Tories, and their wider subservience to the UK financial elite.
The White House statement is certainly a change – but it’s still notable that Trump has said (or tweeted) nothing himself. One suspects that Putin has been privately reassured that no action will follow, and Trump’s own silence is the overt signal of this.
KGsays
Retracting part of what I said in #34, Trump himself has actually said the following:
Well it sounds to me, I am speaking to Theresa May today. It sounds to me like it would be Russia, based on all of the evidence they have. I don’t know if they have come to a conclusion but she is calling me today.
It sounds to me like they believe it was Russia and I would certainly take that finding as fact.
So, we’ll see if he follows up on this with a straightforward condemnation of Putin.
Oggie.says
Happy Ides of March. Today we celebrate the peaceful settlement of political differences. Julius Caesar put his all into it.
President Trump boasted in a fundraising speech Wednesday that he made up information in a meeting with the leader of a top U.S. ally, saying he insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the United States runs a trade deficit with its neighbor to the north without knowing whether that was the case.
…
In his 30-minute speech to donors in Missouri, Trump launched a blistering attack against major U.S. allies and global economies, accusing the European Union, China, Japan and South Korea of ripping off the United States for decades and pillaging the U.S. workforce. He also described the North American Free Trade Agreement as a disaster and heaped blame on the World Trade Organization for allowing other countries to box in the United States on trade.
Trump seemed to threaten to pull U.S. troops stationed in South Korea if he didn’t get what he wanted on trade with Seoul, an ally. He said the country had gotten rich but that U.S. politicians never negotiated better deals. “We have a very big trade deficit with them, and we protect them,” Trump said. “We lose money on trade, and we lose money on the military. We have right now 32,000 soldiers on the border between North and South Korea. Let’s see what happens.”
“Our allies care about themselves,” he said. “They don’t care about us.”
…
The president was in Missouri to raise money for Josh Hawley, who is taking on incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill in November’s election. He called McCaskill “bad for Missouri and bad for the country.” But he barely spoke about Hawley. Instead, he talked about Trump — even bragging about his 2016 election win — and lavished praise on himself while ticking through a list of U.S. allies that he said were actually taking advantage of the United States.
…
The through lines of Trump’s meandering speech were simple: Trump was tougher than all the rest, and the United States was not going to be laughed at or taken advantage of.
He accused Japan of using gimmicks to deny U.S. auto companies access to its consumers, said South Korea was taking advantage of outdated trade rules even though its economy was strong and said China had single-handedly rebuilt itself on the back of its trade surplus with the United States.
…
His comments were among his most protectionist to date and didn’t identify a single benefit the United States receives from its trading relationships.
…
Trump mocked other politicians for wanting to keep NAFTA, calling Mexico “spoiled” and saying that Canada had outsmarted the United States. “The best deal is to terminate it and make a new deal,” he said.
Above all, he cast his presidency in historic terms, saying he was attracting so much media criticism because he was doing so well. He seemed fixated on his media coverage, even talking about a specific CNN segment with Erin Burnett….
Gee. I am so surprised. Really. Toys-R-Us was, at least in part, a victim of malignant capitalism:
A year later the company was taken private by KKR, Bain Capital and real estate firm Vornado. The $6.6 billion purchase left it with $5.3 billion in debt secured by its assets and it never really recovered. (From CNN
Bain Capital. The company that buys troubled companies, guts them, and then walks away from the wreckage. I don’t know if Toys-R-Us could have survived — the market for large specialty stores is limited — but they were spending $400million a year servicing the debt. Which meant no improvements. Which meant no expansion into new markets. Which meant no expansion into internet sales. Which meant the stores looked and felt like dirty warehouses. I don’t know (and will most likely never know) how much Bain Capital made in helping Toys-R-Us into liquidation but I would bet it was lots.
“JUST IN: In joint statement, U.S., U.K., French, German leaders say they believe Russia was responsible for the nerve agent attack against an ex-spy and his daughter.” (Statement at the link.)
As Natasha Bertrand points out in response to the joint statement @ #39, “The Trump administration has still not imposed the sanctions on Russia that were passed by Congress last year.”
The U.S. sanctioned a St. Petersburg-based “troll farm,” a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, two Russian intelligence services and other Russian citizens and businesses indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller on charges of meddling with the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
The penalties follow the February indictment and more than a year of criticism from Democrats and some Republican lawmakers that Trump has been too slow to act against Russia for intruding in the election.
The troll farm, called the Internet Research Agency, and all other businesses, entities and people included in Mueller’s Feb. 16 indictment were sanctioned. They include Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a wealthy Russian known as “Putin’s chef,” whom Mueller alleged controlled the IRA through two other businesses. The special counsel alleged a vast scheme to interfere with the campaign through social media and help President Donald Trump win.
The Treasury Department also announced sanctions against Russia’s Federal Security Service, a spy organization know as the FSB, and its Main Intelligence Directorate, a military intelligence service known as the GRU. Igor Korobov, described as chief of the GRU, was also sanctioned, along with five other past or present senior GRU officials.
The two agencies and most of the officials had been previously sanctioned under the Obama administration….
“The Administration is confronting and countering malign Russian cyber activity, including their attempted interference in U.S. elections, destructive cyber-attacks, and intrusions targeting critical infrastructure,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. “These targeted sanctions are a part of a broader effort to address the ongoing nefarious attacks emanating from Russia. Treasury intends to impose additional CAATSA sanctions, informed by our intelligence community, to hold Russian government officials and oligarchs accountable for their destabilizing activities by severing their access to the U.S. financial system.”
Matthew Miller on sanctions: “If they really want to bring pain to Vladimir Putin, they’re going to have to sanction the senior officials close to him … and maybe Putin’s assets themselves.”
“Briefing reporters, Senior Admin Officials say the sanctions are just one of a series of actions ‘to counter Russia aggression’ and there will be more US actions ‘to counter malicious Russian activity’.”
A spokeswoman for the Czech court confirmed to the AP that George Nader, who’s now cooperating with the Mueller probe, “was convicted of ‘moral corruption of minors, sexual abuse and impairing morals’, after abusing underage boys” there and sentenced to a year in prison in 2003.
Friends of the Russian exile found dead in his London home on Monday said they believed his death to be suspicious, adding that he had shown no signs of depression in recent months and was “in a perfect mood”.
Nikolai Glushkov’s body was found by his daughter Natalya at his house in New Malden, Kingston upon Thames. There were signs of “suffocation”, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported. Glushkov, 68, lived alone.
…
Glushkov was a prominent opponent of the Kremlin. He spent five years in jail in Russia before escaping to the UK in 2004. He was a director of Aeroflot, the state airline, and worked closely with Berezovsky in the 1980s and 90s.
At the time of his death, Glushkov was about to defend a claim against him by Aeroflot at the commercial court in London, where he was accused by the Russian authorities of fraud. One friend, who declined to be named, said he had spent months preparing for the case.
He failed to show up for a hearing on Monday morning. “He was eager to win,” the friend said. “He had been getting ready for this for months.” The friend said she had visited him in December in hospital, soon before he had an operation on his foot, and spoke to him afterwards on the phone.
“He was in a good mood all the time. There was nothing about him which suggested depression or unhappiness. He was in perfect spirits,” the friend said….
These new sanctions are totally inconsequential. The previous administration had already sanctioned most of the entities and individuals designated today, so there’s really nothing new here.
Furthermore, such narrowly targeted sanctions have little to no impact on the operations of Russia’s intelligence services or its proxies, since these organizations don’t transact (at least overtly) through the U.S. financial system.
Finally, they have no impact on Russia’s economy at all. I suspect the Trump administration will cite these designations as evidence that it is getting “tough” on Russia but in this case it’s all smoke and mirrors.
John Sipher: “Agree. Means nothing. They are proud of what they did. Sanctions mean nothing to them.”
(As several people have pointed out, they’re significant in the sense that they endorse Mueller’s findings, but as sanctions they’re pretty minimal and also belated. They need to do what they say they intend @ #43 sooner rather than later.)
Vice President Mike Pence raised money last night for his brother, Greg Pence, who’s running for Congress in Indiana. Because the event was held at the Trump International Hotel in D.C., the president was able to profit from the fundraiser.
In other financial news related to Trump, his attorney John Dowd, violated election law in 2017. He contributed more than is legally allowed to Trump.
[…] A March letter from the Federal Election Commission to the Trump campaign listed Dowd as one of 108 donors who gave more than the the individual maximum in the third quarter of 2017. […]
SC in comment 37 mentioned that Trump seemed to threaten to withdraw US troops from South Korea as part of his bullying tactic to get a better trade deal. South Korean leaders are reported to be “bewildered.”
Oh, no. I do not want a “Phase 2” of Trumpian tax cuts.
This is from the New York Times:
Amid all the turmoil and uncertainty, with his White House seemingly fraying, his legislative agenda stalled and his electoral base in danger, President Trump these days finds one area of comfort: talking about his tax cuts. He finds it so reassuring, in fact, that he is increasingly talking about doing it all over again. […]
“We’re now going for a Phase 2,” he told a selected group of supporters at a Boeing factory in St. Louis. He did not describe what would be in such a Phase 2 but said he would team up with Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “It’s going to be something very special. Kevin Brady’s working on it with me.”
Trump also thinks that the previous round of tax cuts were “popular.” No, that’s not true. A Quinnipiac poll found that 36% of Americans support the Republican tax law. Other polls also found the “disapprove” ratings higher than the “approve” ratings. https://twitter.com/JesseFFerguson/status/971461132673257482
The young man last night that ran, he said, “Oh, I’m like Trump. Second Amendment, everything. I love the tax cuts, everything.” He ran on that basis. He ran on a campaign that said very nice things about me. I said, “Is he a Republican? He sounds like a Republican to me”.
Lamb opposed Trump’s tax plan. Lamb supported universal health care. Lamb opposed Paul Ryan’s planned cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Lamb is not like Trump. Lamb never said that he is like Trump. Lamb is not delusional like Trump.
Trump’s statement is bonkers. I guess Trump would try anything to explain away another loss.
SC @37, one thing that amazes me about that speech is that Trump was actually bragging about making shit up. Trump bragged about lying to Trudeau’s face. Trump thinks that is a virtue:
Trudeau came to see me. He’s a good guy, Justin. He said, “No, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none. Donald, please,” Trump said, mimicking Trudeau, according to audio obtained by The Washington Post.
Nice guy, good-looking guy, comes in — “Donald, we have no trade deficit.” He’s very proud because everybody else, you know, we’re getting killed.
[…] So, he’s proud. I said, “Wrong, Justin, you do.” I didn’t even know…. I had no idea. I just said, “You’re wrong.” You know why? Because we’re so stupid. … And I thought they were smart. I said, “You’re wrong, Justin.” He said, “Nope, we have no trade deficit.” I said, “Well, in that case, I feel differently,” I said, “but I don’t believe it.” I sent one of our guys out, his guy, my guy, they went out, I said, “Check, because I can’t believe it.”
Trump claims that his aide came back and told him that the USA does have a trade deficit with Canada. According to data put out by the Trump administration the USA has a trade surplus with Canada.
Trump told a story that glorified ignorance. That story then took a turn to glorify Trump’s intuition, or some such bull pucky. (See, he is right even when he hasn’t studied the issues and doesn’t know anything about the data. /sarcasm) Bull pucky.
Trump is proud of his ignorance.
Trump can’t stop at one lie. He has to embellish. He has to pile lie on top of lie. This is a disaster for the U.S.
Jimmy Kimmel went shopping at the Trump Organization’s online store. He found potential violations of law and absolutely no goods made in America. Scroll down for the video. Link
[…] Last night, Kimmel revealed he’d gone on a shopping spree at the Trump Organization’s online store. He wanted to see how seriously the Trump family was taking the “America first” challenge Donald Trump has made to American companies, demanding more companies begin making merchandise here in the U.S.A again. Kimmel pulled one piece of merchandise after the other from the box and read each label and surprise! Not one single item was made in the U.SA. More than that, he found two items were missing the federally required country of origin designation. That was enough for the late night host to file a federal complaint against the company. If federal officials agree with Kimmel’s assertion, the Trump Organization could be fined $500,000 per offense.
Kimmel begins the segment with a summary of Conor Lamb’s win in Pennsylvania. Kimmel also discussed the Trump tariffs on steel on aluminum, and Trump’s emphasis on manufacturing products in the USA.
The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has subpoenaed the Trump Organization to turn over documents, including some related to Russia, according to two people briefed on the matter. The order is the first known time that the special counsel demanded documents directly related to President Trump’s businesses, bringing the investigation closer to the president.
The breadth of the subpoena was not clear, nor was it clear why Mr. Mueller issued it instead of simply asking for the documents from the company, an umbrella organization that oversees Mr. Trump’s business ventures. In the subpoena, delivered in recent weeks, Mr. Mueller ordered the Trump Organization to hand over all documents related to Russia and other topics he is investigating, the people said.
The subpoena is the latest indication that the investigation, which Mr. Trump’s lawyers once regularly assured him would be completed by now, will drag on for at least several more months. Word of the subpoena comes as Mr. Mueller appears to be broadening his investigation to examine the role foreign money may have played in funding Mr. Trump’s political activities. In recent weeks, Mr. Mueller’s investigators have questioned witnesses, including an adviser to the United Arab Emirates, about the flow of Emirati money into the United States….
“The lawyers have advised Mr. Trump to refuse an interview but the president wants to do it, as he believes he has done nothing wrong and can easily answer investigators’ questions.” What is wrong with them that they’re compelled to repeat this bullshit?
Trump is finalizing his plan to fight the opioid epidemic. His plan includes the death penalty for dealers. I wonder if this means that he is going to put to death the head honchos of pharmaceutical companies that ship thousands of pills per person into small towns?
The Trump administration is finalizing a long-awaited plan that it says will solve the opioid crisis, but it also calls for law enforcement measures — like the death penalty for some drug dealers — that public health advocates and congressional Republicans warn will detract from efforts to reverse the epidemic.
The ambitious plan, which the White House has quietly been circulating among political appointees this month, could be announced as soon as Monday when […] Trump visits New Hampshire, a state hard hit by the epidemic. It includes a mix of prevention and treatment measures that advocates have long endorsed, as well as beefed-up enforcement in line with the president’s frequent calls for a harsh crackdown on drug traffickers and dealers. […]
So what if hair furor hinted he maybe thinks Russia was behind the recent assassination. He lies so frequently, so causally, I wouldn’t believe him if he said his name was Donald Trump (without independent and verifiable confirmation). He’s said contradictory things about, as one quite recent example, guns — what he’s said seems to depend on who he last met and (supposedly) listened-to.
If you are ever included to believe any hair furor utterance (without independent and verifiable confirmation), go to Puerto Rico and tell every single person you meet hair furor isn’t a liar.
Adam Schiff on the sanctions announced today: “If President Trump believes that today’s action sufficiently addresses the sanctions package Congress sent to respond forcefully to Moscow’s election interference, then he is sorely mistaken.” (Full statement at the link.)
From Wonkette, coverage of why and how Devin Nunes is even more ill-informed than we thought:
[…] We think you need to sit down for this one. Devin Nunes […] is dumber than we thought. Yes, we thought he had hit rock bottom when he released that hilariously stupid memo, the one that debunked its own premise on the last page. […]
But it’s worse than we knew.
The Washington Examiner reports that Nunes attended a private dinner for wingnuts Wednesday night in DC, […]
Devin Nunes used to love Robert Mueller but then he got sad because Robert Mueller does not investigate the conspiracy theories Devin Nunes finds inside his anus.
“When Mueller was first appointed, I actually sent out a press release that said, this is great, because they’re going to quickly come in, and see what we’ve seen, which is that there’s no evidence whatsoever of collusion, but he’ll immediately go after the crimes which we know have been committed,” he said.
Nunes went on to say, according to the Washington Examiner, that it was a “major felony” that literal actual foreign agent Michael Flynn’s intercepted phone calls with the literal actual Russian ambassador, the ones he lied about, were leaked. Also, too, “unmasking,” […]
Devin Nunes doesn’t even know why there’s an investigation anymore, because Paul Manafort is the only one who could have POSSIBLY colluded with Russia.
“Now look at who Mueller has prosecuted at this point, and who is left to prosecute for collusion?” he wondered. “I mean, there’s no one left. [Former Trump campaign manager Paul] Manafort would be the obvious guy to think of that was colluding, right? If you could have gotten him on collusion, he would have been the obvious choice.”
OK, first of all, there are a fucking MILLION people Mueller could end up prosecuting. Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Michael Cohen, Donald Goddamn Trump, and many more, just off the top of our head.
But secondly, and Trey Gowdy we cannot believe we are asking you for help right now but […] your pal Devin […] apparently does not understand that big boy prosecutors like Robert Mueller will often slam people on lesser charges in order to get them to flip, could you please ‘splain him Law, How Does It Work […] K THX LOVE YOU TREY GOWDY BYE.
Devin Nunes knows who is a communist Russian spy and it is not Michael Flynn!
“Flynn, I mean, I knew Flynn very very well, and he is not a secret communist supporting Putin. So, they can’t get him on that. So who else do they have?” […]
Naved Jafry, who called for radical privatization to fix America’s cities, steps down following inquiry from the Guardian about his record
He said he was a multimillionaire — an international property developer with a plan to fix America’s cities through radical privatization. He felt that Donald Trump’s administration was where he was meant to work.
It was a natural fit, Naved Jafry said in an interview. Citing connections across the military, business and academia, he said: I bring, and draw on, experiences from different areas of knowledge, like a polymath.
Jafry was contracted to work for Trump’s housing and urban development department (Hud). His government email signature said his title was senior adviser. Jafry said he used his role to advocate for microcities[†], where managers privately set their own laws and taxes away from central government control.
But those plans are now stalled. Jafry, 38, said he had resigned from his position with Hud after the Guardian asked him to explain multiple allegations of fraud as well as exaggerations in his biography.
Jafry […] apologised for inflating his military record but denied making other false claims. He said he resigned because the Guardian’s questions tarnished his reputation inside Hud.
You and I both know we live in the world of opinion and facts merging together, he said.
It’s calling lying.
[…]
Styling himself as an entrepreneur and philanthropist, Jafry said he controlled a multimillion-dollar trust fund built since 1885 by relatives in India. According to court records, however, he struggled to pay rent and bills while engaging in a series of failed takeovers of gas stations and other ventures in Texas over the past decade.
Initially, Jafry told the Guardian he had been hired to work on Hud’s envision centers, which work to reduce the number of people dependent on public housing. He later said he had not worked there after all, but declined to explain. Hud declined repeated requests to clarify what Jafry worked on.
[…]
In addition to Jafry’s financial issues, a series of misrepresentations or exaggerations were found in a review of his personal website, other online sources and biographical information he provided.
During an interview, Jafry described himself as a veteran of the US army and said he was deployed to Kosovo. When confronted with his service record, though, he said he in fact served as a reservist in the army national guard, and remained in California while giving logistics support to colleagues in Kosovo.
A version of Jafry’s biography on his website said he held a degree in law and alternative dispute resolution from National University in La Jolla, California. Prof Jack Hamlin, chairman of National’s department of professional studies, said: “We do not offer a ‘law degree’.” He declined to discuss Jafry’s case. Jafry later said he received a BA in pre-law studies.
[… details of more dubious or misleading claims…]
Raffi Williams, a Hud spokesman, said in an email that Jafry was hired through Accel Corporation, a contractor. When this was put to Stacye Loman, the owner of Accel Corporation, she said in an email: “That is an incorrect statement.” Loman then gave the names of two different companies that she said had hired Jafry. […]
Teh bestest peoples.
National University does indeed have a BA in Pre-Law Studies, so he might not be lying about that. Apparently they used to have a school of law, but it was closed c.1991 (c.27 years ago); this nutter apparently “arrived in the US in about 2005”, and is now 38, so it is impossible for him to have attended their school of law.
† There is indeed a class of decisions and implementations which should be done on a fairly local / small-scale basis. However, this nutter’s microcities goes way too far in that direction, and positively stinks of loonytarian “thinking”; hence the eejit quotes.
Oggie.says
Sometimes I really hate my office. I work a cubicle, which means that any conversation in my office is heard by all. I just listened to two of our volunteers complaining about Trump. Well, not complaining about Trump, but complaining about how he is being treated.
The short version is:
* Obama got elected by having illegal voters bused in and promising to give things to people.
* Congress and the courts gave Obama everything he asked for with no conditions attached and he forced 200,000 doctors out of practice by forcing Obamacare on everyone.
* Congress and the courts gave Obama everything he asked for with no conditions and destroyed the thriving economy that Bush II had fostered, bankrupted millions, put America into a depression, and left office with the stock market worth half what it was when he took office.
* No Obama appointees were ever forced to resign or were even investigated.
* Now, with Trump, congress is being held hostage by the radical left Democrat Party [sic] who have stopped any of Trump’s wonderful ideas being enacted and instead are spending billions of dollars (Biiiiillions, I tell you!) investigating one man who had some business dealings with Russia and trying to make it look like Trump is some sort of liar or worse.
* The radical left has blocked his wonderful health care plan, stopped him protecting America by stopping the Obama push to bring in Muslims, prevented almost all his nominees for secretaries and judgeships going forward, and said mean things about him.
* No Obama appointees were ever investigated but look how many good people have been forced out of office by innuendos and fake news.
* And, to top it off, Hillary’s emails and the good people she murdered in Benghazi are a far bigger scandal than anything Trump or his people have done.
They are both retired. Both white men. One was a teacher who went to school on the GI bill and has a fantastic pension. One worked for a defense contractor and is worth millions. And both think that Fox News has gotten too liberal. These two are otherwise rational Americans. And they believe all this shit.
And no matter how much I turned the music coming through my earbuds up, they kept getting louder and louder and louder. Even Verdi arias did not cover up the shit.
Larry Kudlow, Trump’s pick as chief economic adviser, has a history of radically different views to the president’s [sic] on the economy
[…]
● Kudlow on the looming housing bubble … Homebuilders led the stock parade this week with a fantastic 11% gain, Kudlow wrote in 2005. All the bubbleheads who expect housing-price crashes in Las Vegas or Naples, Florida, to bring down the consumer, the rest of the economy and the entire stock market have been dead wrong. They weren’t. Shortly after this pronouncement the housing crash helped plunge the US — and the rest of the world — into the worst recession in living memory.
[…]
● Kudlow on Nafta …
[…]
“If this steel {tariffs} thing turns from being a minor irritant to a major calamity for our economy and our stockmarket, and if it brings down Nafta … that would be a major calamity for our economy.”
● And Kudlow on tariffs …
[…]
“Steel and aluminium may win in the short term, but steel and aluminium users and consumers will lose. In fact, tariff hikes are really tax hikes. Some of those 5m jobs will be put in harm’s way. And if they sell less to foreigners, the trade deficit goes up, not down,” Kudlow wrote in a column earlier this month entitled: Mr President, tariffs are really tax hikes.
● Kudlow on political discourse …
And good luck with this: “I believe one of the things the Unites States needs […†] is civility. Our discourse must improve. I think the art of persuasion has been lost. […] I don’t like insults and I don’t like underhanded this and that. Name-calling — I don’t like any of that. This is about principles, not personalities.”
Taken at face value, some of excerpted Kudlow quotes seem sensible — which does not mean he also won’t be one of teh hair furor’s bestest people — hence not being marked as idiotic. One exception is the †-marked redacted text: [the States needs] King Dollar and tax cuts.
Claim is contained in memo by Democratic lawmakers investigating possible collusion between Trump campaign and Kremlin
Donald Trump’s private company was “actively negotiating” a business deal in Moscow with a sanctioned Russian bank during the 2016 election campaign, according to a memo by Democratic lawmakers investigating possible collusion between the campaign and the Kremlin.
[…]
[… Last August] the New York Times published emails from a longtime business associate of Trump called Felix Sater, who boasted that he had lined up financing for a Trump Tower in Moscow with VTB Bank, which is under US sanctions.
It is not clear from the Democrats’ memo whether the deal they are referring to is the same deal mentioned in Sater’s emails.
In another email obtained by the newspaper, Sater wrote that he would get “Putin on this programme and we will get Donald elected”.
Trump eventually signed a non-binding “letter of intent” for the project to go forward and his attorney, Michael Cohen, told the New York Times that they had discussed the project three times. […]
Trump is anxious to scrap NAFTA. He harps on it constantly. Other people are not so sure that’s a good idea:
Ten former U.S. Northern and Southern Command leaders on Thursday urged President Trump against withdrawing from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), warning that such a move could hurt security ties with Canada and Mexico.
“Effective pursuit of U.S. security and economic interests depends on partnership with those nations that share our borders, Canada and Mexico,” the four ex-Northcom commanders and six ex-Southcom commanders wrote in a letter to Trump.
“We respectfully ask you to update and strengthen the agreement on a mutually beneficial basis, while ensuring it remains a part of the U.S. strategic arsenal for many years to come.” […]
The former military leaders contend that the agreement has “established a framework of trust among all three parties, leading to close cooperation to address a range of pressing concerns including drug trafficking, terrorism, cyber security, organized crime, and migration.”
Should it be scrapped, “cooperation with our North American neighbors will be less likely, weakening our ability to confront security challenges.” […]
Northcom is in charge of military movements in the United States, Canada and Mexico, while Southcom overlooks Central and South America and the Caribbean. […]
Alexi, an 18-year-old man from Honduras, has been locked behind bars in an orange jumpsuit in York County Prison in Pennsylvania since November. Why? Because he sought protection at our Southern border after assailants in Honduras beat him and held him at gunpoint for being gay. He’s not alone. Across the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has locked up thousands of asylum seekers like Alexi in jails and other detention facilities for lawfully seeking refuge at an official port of entry (officially, these individuals are classified as “arriving asylum seekers”). Many are then held for months, or even years, pending final outcomes in their asylum cases. This treatment does not reflect the ideals and values upon which the United States was built. This is not who we are.
In response to the Trump administration’s attack on asylum seekers, on Thursday, Human Rights First—and our co-counsel, the ACLU, Covington & Burling, and the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies—filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the widespread denial of parole that is keeping thousands of asylum seekers locked up. […]
Oggie.says
Oggie @61, that is … alarming. It makes you wonder how such people hold down a job. Do other parts of their brains still work?
Both are retired. The teacher got in on the housing bubble and retired a millionaire. The defense contractor used stock options to retire a millionaire. Now, all they do (aside from volunteering here) is watch Fox News and talk with other old, rich, retired white men and kvetch about the damn kids, the blacks, the Latinos, the Muslims, the poor, the working class. After all, they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps (using student loans, low state tuition, etc) so why should those people get anything. I suspect they were good at their jobs. Now they are so blinded by privilege that they are inhabiting second earth.
Michigan candidate Brian Ellison says giving homeless people pump-action shotguns may help deter the violent crime they face
[…]
Brian Ellison, who is running against Democratic incumbent Debbie Stabenow, says homeless people are “constantly victims of violent crime” and providing them with firearms would provide a deterrent.
Ellison, a Libertarian who is expected to be the party’s candidate in the November midterm election, said he had settled on pump-action shotguns for practicality purposes.
Frankly I think the ideal weapon would be a pistol, he told the Guardian, but due to the licensing requirements in the state we’re going to have a hard enough time getting homeless people shotguns as it is.
Getting them pistols is probably next to impossible. The pistols need to be registered, people have to have addresses.
Carrying a concealed pistol is illegal without a permit, Ellison said, whereas open-carrying a long gun is completely legal.
So we thought that pump-action shotguns were a suitable alternative to a pistol.
[…]
Ellison said he did not think the plan was dangerous.
[… O]ver the last 17 years, at least 1657 people experiencing homelessness have been the victims of violence perpetrated for the sole reason that they were unhoused at the time. This number includes 428 men and women who lost their lives for being homeless, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It is easy to see a correlation between the appearance of laws criminalizing homelessness, and the increase of hate crimes or violent acts against homeless people. A 2014 report from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found that out of 187 cities that have enacted some type of law criminalizing daily activities often carried out by people without stable housing, 21 cities were located in California (11%) and 17 were in Florida (9%). No Safe Street finds that out of 199 attacks against homeless persons in 2014–2015, the largest share of incidents took place in California (43 attacks) and Florida (18 attacks).
The excerpted summary does not compare the rate of violence against the homeless to that against any of the housed (I did not check the full report). However, in the UK, it’s about 15 times more likely for a homeless person to be attacked (Crisis report reveals shocking dangers of being homeless, Dec-2016 (“Crisis” is the name of a UK homelessness NGO)).
Whilst the loonytarian in the first excerpt also doesn’t like the militarization of the police, why do I have the suspicion he hasn’t really thought about the problems (plural) here in any depth?
Sadegh Zibakalam said unrest was due to internal discontent, not foreign interference
[…]
Sadegh Zibakalam, speaking to the Guardian on the phone from Tehran on Wednesday, said he has also been banned from political and social activities including writing for newspapers and giving interviews, or activities on social media, for a period of two years, according to his verdict. He has 20 days to appeal.
He was summoned by judicial authorities last week in connection with an interview he gave to Deutsche Welle’s Persian service earlier this year. In that interview, he said internal public discontent was the main driving factor behind a wave of unrest that shook the country in January, which the authorities blamed on Iran’s external enemies.
Mizan, a news agency affiliated to the judiciary, said that prior to his sentencing he was facing accusations of spreading propaganda against the state through giving interviews to foreign websites and trying to discredit the Islamic Republic’s ruling system.
Iran has a history of going after those who speak to exiled Persian language services, such as BBC Persian.
The Iranian attacks and restrictions on the BBC, its Persian staff, and the family of those staff, have been the subject of multiple comments in this series of poopyhead threads.
“I decided not to nominate any lawyers, because accusations against me, in essence, are political. In my defence, I asked the judge if in this country we’re allowed to have an opinion which is different from that of the establishment.”
[…]
In 2014, he was ordered to pay a fine of 40m rials (£590) for questioning — in a public letter — how beneficial Iran’s nuclear programme has been to the country. This resulted in the current judge sentencing him to 18 months, more than the maximum one year prescribed by Iranian law for the crime of spreading propaganda against the state.
Zibakalam added: “This is also the first time the judiciary has sentenced someone to be completely banned from activities on social media for two years. They have a grudge against me because I voiced opinions against those held by the ruling system.”
Zibakalam’s fame in Iran is unusual even for a professor of political science who teaches at the country’s most well-known academic institution. The professor, who is sympathetic to the reformists and has over 370,000 followers on Facebook, became popular for his daring and passionate debates with hardliners on national television, radio or at roundtables hosted by various institutions.
He has publicly challenged the state line on many sensitive topics, such as saying in 2014 that he recognised Israel because the UN recognises it as a state. Iran does not recognise Israel and authorities often refer to it as the Zionist regime; those who defy bans on travel to Israel can be put in prison for as long as five years.
[… A conservative member of the parliament, Hamid] Rasaei attacked Zibakalam for questioning the nuclear programme, saying it symbolises Iran’s struggle for independence today. “Mr Zibakalam, why did you go to jail {under the late Shah’s rule}?” Rasai asked, trying to remind the professor of his revolutionary past. Zibakalam did not hesitate to respond: “I went to jail for democracy, so that we wouldn’t have political prisoners in the future, so that we wouldn’t have {opposition leaders} placed under house arrest.” Zibakalam, who has been critical of the situation of human rights in Iran, was referring to the house arrest of opposition leaders, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.
A high point in their debate was when Zibakalam said the world is suspicious of Iran over its anti-Israel bellicose. “Brazil, Argentina and India all have nuclear programme but Iran is the only country which has announced it wants to destroy Israel{…} who has given us the duty to destroy Israel?” Zibakalam said. “Israel has never said it wants to destroy us{…} Even Palestinians recognise Israel. We are more catholic than the pope.”
Human rights groups say judges, under influence of intelligence apparatus, spearheading crackdown on journalists and activists
[…]
Four judges with Iran’s revolutionary court and two appeal judges have led numerous court sessions that activists say did not conform to fair trial principles according to Iran’s constitution, and are in breach of international treaties to which Tehran is a signatory.
The six judges are accused of losing their judicial impartiality and overseeing miscarriages of justice in trials in which scores of journalists, lawyers, political activists and members of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities have been condemned to lengthy prison terms, lashes and even execution.
[…]
According to several former prisoners who spoke to the Guardian, and testimonies received by human rights groups, common violations by the judges include holding trials behind closed doors, lasting only a few minutes and without essential legal procedures, intimidating defendants, breaching judicial independence by acting as prosecutors themselves and depriving prisoners of access to lawyers.
These “judges” sound similar to the sort of kooks hair furor and the thugs in Congress are installing in the USAian federal courts.
They secured a massive gov contract for Guantanamo, have Manafort ties and whispers of foreign shady dealings PLUS the founder/owner is a Cuban ex-CIA collaborator.”
The story about the Manafort ties and CMZ (in which Manafort partnered with Brad Zackson, a former employee of Fred Trump who did time in the ’80s for like attempted murder; also which appears to have been nothing but a vehicle to launder money Dmitry Firtash stole from Ukraine) is wild.
[…]
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has warned countries that don’t stop immigration will be lost in a speech three weeks before he seeks re-election for a third term.
[…]
Africa wants to kick down our door, and Brussels is not defending us, Orbán told the crowds gathered outside the Hungarian parliament building […]. Europe is under invasion already, and they are watching with their hands in the air.
Orbán devoted all of his 25-minute speech to the issue of migration and offered no political programme or vision for the country except for shutting out migrants.
[…]
We are against the idea that migration is good or that it is a human right, Orbán’s spokesman Zoltán Kovács said last week.
As the election nears, Orbán has stepped up the apocalyptic warnings. With his government mired in a number of scandals, and surveys showing the majority of Hungarians believe the government to be corrupt, the migration card is the key rallying point to keep his voting base engaged.
[…]
The fractured Hungarian opposition has been mired in its own scandals and conflicts, and the failure to put on a united front for the upcoming elections could well hand Fidesz [Orbán’s nazis] a decisive victory.
“The only party that can defeat Fidesz is Fidesz itself,” said Balázs Jarábik of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, referring to a number of corruption scandals around senior party figures and Orbán’s son-in-law.
Across town at an alternative rally held by the Two-tailed Dog party, an opposition group that mainly communicates through jokes, leader Gergely Kovács recited the party’s “promises” to the electorate, including a ban on Hungarian families travelling abroad, a removal of all civil rights and a variable tax regime based on people’s loyalty to the government. The satirical promises, parodies of the governmental rhetoric, drew ironic cheers from the crowd, mainly made up of young, liberal Hungarians.
“Sarah Sanders claims Trump has been “extremely tough” on Russia; says it’s up to Russia to ‘decide whether they want to be a good actor or a bad actor’
… and suggests that Putin could still be ‘a friend’ of the U.S.”
During the same briefing she asserted outright that veteran FBI official Andrew McCabe is a bad actor.
Robert Fico’s position became untenable after coalition partners withdrew from government
[…]
Fico’s resignation comes weeks into a political crisis sparked by the murder in February of Jan Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová. Kuciak had been investigating alleged mafia infiltration into the country, with questions raised about Fico’s judgment after it emerged that one of his close aides, was the former business partner of an alleged member of the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta clan.
[…]
[…] Fico appeared increasingly defensive and conspiratorialafter street protests demanding his resignation. Earlier this month, he accused [President Andrej] Kiska of colluding with the Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros to bring down his government after the president said in a public broadcast: “A large number of people are convinced that this tragedy in many ways reflects Slovak reality in general.”
[…]
Hair furor and Viktor Orbán (see @72) are not the only paranoid fantasists. (Orbán has also made wild accusations about Soros with a distinctly antisemitic tone.)
Leaflet offers vague rewards of points for throwing acid and beating Muslims or bombing mosques and nuking Mecca.
[…]
The leaflet says: They have hurt you, they have made your loved ones suffer. They have caused you pain and heartache. What are you going to about it?
It goes on to offer rewards for attackers, from 10 points for verbally abusing a Muslim and 50 points for throwing acid in the face of a Muslim, to 1,000 points for bombing a mosque and 2,500 points to nuke Mecca.
[…]
Shahab Adris, from Leeds, said he was disgusted at the content of the widely-reported letter and had a “brainwave” on Saturday.
“I thought, let’s turn this letter on its head, keep the points system and turn it into something lovely,” he said.
“Some of the responses I’ve seen from the Muslim community have been really positive, but the most remarkable thing has been getting responses from people who are not Muslim, saying they will do something with a Muslim colleague.”
Mr Adris works for Muslim Engagement & Development, a national charity promoting political and social engagement and countering Islamophobia.
His letter rewards an increasing number of points for actions including ‘smile at a Muslim’, ‘buy a Muslim coffee with cake’ and ‘do a fundraiser for the needy’. [see image at the link]
Algerian businessman vows to pay Danish face veil fines.
An Algerian businessman has said he would pay all the fines faced by women in Denmark who choose to wear full-face veils, as the Danish government on February 6 proposed a ban on full-face veils in public spaces. The measure has yet to be approved.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency in front of the Danish parliament, on Saturday, Rasheed Nekkaz said that he had already paid 1,538 fines for women facing similar circumstances in six countries, including France, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany.
[…]
“Governments in Europe aren’t producing solutions for Muslims to adapt to Europe, which is why Muslim communities in Europe need to be much stronger in order to protect their interests,” he said.
“It is very important for me to be able to give European governments the message on restricting freedom that they can’t just do whatever they want,” he said.
[…]
Nekkaz said that before Denmark, he travelled to Iran to support the freedom of 29 women arrested on March 8 for refusing to wear veils on International Women’s Day.
“The reason I’m here isn’t to defend religion, but to defend freedom. The principle of freedom is a universal right,” he said.
“So I defend the freedom of those who want to wear veils in Europe and those who don’t want to wear veils in Iran,” he said.
[… Speaking in English,] Bannon praised Le Pen’s ambivalence over the left-right divide […]. The more pertinent political split, he said, is whether you consider the nation state as an obstacle to be overcome or as a jewel to be polished, loved and nurtured.
What I’ve learned {visiting Europe} is that you’re part of a worldwide movement that is bigger than France, bigger than Italy, bigger than Hungary, bigger than all of it, Bannon said to enthusiastic applause.
[…] Bannon twice called Trump our beloved president […]. He touted crypto currencies as tools to freedom for a so-called global populist revolt. A co-founder of hardline right-wing Breitbart News, Bannon sought and received loud boos and whistles for the reporters present when he blasted the running dogs in the opposition media who were taken aback by Hillary Clinton’s defeat.
[…]
Let them call you racist, let them call you xenophobes, let them call you nativists. Wear it like a badge of honour. Because every day we get stronger and they get weaker, he said, before concluding on a God Bless America. And vive la France, sending FN supporters leaping to their feet to cheer.
[…]
Polling in the week ahead of this convention has given every impression that Marine Le Pen’s credibility bubble has burst. Only 16 percent of those polled nationally — down from 24 percent a year ago — think she would make a good president, according to a Kantar poll. In February 2017, 69 percent professed faith in her capacity for decision-making; just under half still do today. Only 8 percent of voters think she understands France’s problems and how to solve them, half her score only a year ago — and, critically, just about the same as Jean-Marie Le Pen when he was last in charge.
[…]
Not exactly a fresh-faced up-and-comer, [Bannon] is hardly less sulphurous than Le Pen’s father. Moreover, the 64-year-old Bannon is on the outs with Trump and now ostracized even by Breitbart.
Indeed, aside from populist parties itching to emulate his longshot electoral coup, the Trump name is toxic in France. A Suffolk University poll last spring found 82 percent of French voters viewed the Republican billionaire unfavourably, making the US president [sic] France’s lowest-ranking foreign leader, 11 points less popular than Vladimir Putin. Latching onto a Trump crony, even an ousted one, is hardly likely to stoke new alliances in France.
Meanwhile, Bannon has shouted from the rooftops his admiration not for Marine, but for Marion [Maréchal-Le Pen], calling the youngest member of the Le Pen political dynasty a rising star as early as 2016. […]
Marion is usually considered the most extreme of the three, which is quite a feat when you consider how überextreme the orge (Jean-Marie) is. No surprise Bannon prefers her.
On the comical proposal to change the le penazis name, it turns out there already is a group of fruitcakes calling themselves Rassemblement National, who are not at all pleased to associated with another group of kooks. (This is in addition to the historical loons who have used the name in the past.) Marine Le Pen sparks row over new name for Front National:
Far-right leader faces legal threat amid claims that Rassemblement National name is already taken
Marine Le Pen’s proposal to rebrand her far-right party as Rassemblement National has sparked a furious row over who owns the name and whether the Front National has the right to adopt it.
[…]
Critics also questioned whether FN leaders had suffered collective historical amnesia in choosing a name that harks back to Nazi-supporting and extreme right organisations, or had picked it deliberately.
After Le Pen announced the proposed name on Sunday afternoon, Igor Kurek, the president of the “Rassemblement National”, fired off a furious letter to the FN leader on Twitter saying the far-right leader had no right to the name.
Dear Marine, the RN (Rassemblement National) already exists and you can’t deny its existence when it has stood against your candidates several times since 2014, Kurek wrote.
SC @73, McCabe is defending himself today. I wish him well. He has the chops needed to put together a good defense. If nothing else, he can surely delay the forces trying to fire him so that they can’t fire him before he retires and his pension kicks in.
A […] woman has become the first undocumented immigrant named to a statewide post in California.
Lizbeth Mateo, an attorney and immigrant rights activist, was appointed to an advisory committee that seeks to improve access to college for low-income California students […].
The committee’s formal name is a bureaucratic mouthful — the California Student Opportunity and Access Program Project Grant Advisory Committee, or “Cal-SOAP,” for short — but its mission is one that will be familiar to Mateo: to find ways to help students from underserved communities go to college.
She was once such a student, she said.
Mateo was born in Oaxaca, Mexico, and was brought to Los Angeles by her parents at age 14. She didn’t learn English until high school, but became the first person in her family to graduate from college […].
Mateo went on to earn a law degree from Santa Clara University in 2016, passed the California State Bar exam last year and now has a private practice […]
[…] Mateo may still encounter resistance in her new role: Her tweets announcing her appointment were met with dozens of replies, some derogatory, from critics who told her she should be deported.
[…]
The appointment appears to be the latest example of California’s resistance to the Trump administration and its policies, particularly with regards to immigration. It was finalized one day after President [sic] Donald Trump made his first visit to California to review prototypes for a proposed wall along the US-Mexico border — a trip [state senate president pro tem Kevin] de Leon blasted as “a political stunt to rally his base around a stupid boondoggle.”
The feeling seemed mutual. During his visit, Trump slammed California officials for allowing the state to go totally out of control.
You have sanctuary cities where you have criminals living in sanctuary cities, and then the mayor of Oakland goes out and notifies when ICE is going in to pick them up, Trump told reporters in San Diego on Tuesday as he visited border wall prototypes. People are going to start to move pretty soon. If you don’t have this kind of wall, drugs are pouring through in California. Can’t do it.
[…]
It’s unclear if Mateo’s appointment was intentionally scheduled to coincide with Trump’s visit. But a news release from de Leon’s office announcing Mateo’s appointment made clear Trump was front of mind.
“While Donald Trump fixates on walls,” the statement said, “California will continue to concentrate on opportunities.”
tomhsays
Minutes after blockbuster report on Russia investigation, the knives are out for Rod Rosenstein. Fox News chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge, says (wrongly) that Mueller would have had to get authority from Rosenstein to subpoena the Trump organization. Trump, however, has said that any investigation into his business activities by Mueller would cross a “red line,” so, according to the deep thinkers at Fox, this means Rosenstein has to go. Since Trump gets his policies by watching Fox, there’s probably a pretty good chance of it.
Mika Brzezinski just asked Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti whether Daniels had been threatened, and he said “Yes.” She then asked if she had been physically threatened, and again he said “Yes.”
The Trump administration accused Russia on Thursday of engineering a series of cyberattacks that targeted American and European nuclear power plants and water and electric systems, and could have sabotaged or shut power plants off at will.
United States officials and private security firms saw the attacks as a signal by Moscow that it could disrupt the West’s critical facilities in the event of a conflict.
They said the strikes accelerated in late 2015, at the same time the Russian interference in the American election was underway. The attackers had compromised some operators in North America and Europe by spring 2017, after President Trump was inaugurated.
In the following months, according to a Department of Homeland Security report issued on Thursday, Russian hackers made their way to machines with access to critical control systems at power plants that were not identified. The hackers never went so far as to sabotage or shut down the computer systems that guide the operations of the plants.
Still, new computer screenshots released by the Department of Homeland Security on Thursday made clear that Russian state hackers had the foothold they would have needed to manipulate or shut down power plants.
“We now have evidence they’re sitting on the machines, connected to industrial control infrastructure, that allow them to effectively turn the power off or effect sabotage,” said Eric Chien, a security technology director at Symantec, a digital security firm.
“From what we can see, they were there. They have the ability to shut the power off. All that’s missing is some political motivation,” Mr. Chien said….
He said he was a multimillionaire – an international property developer with a plan to fix America’s cities through radical privatization. He felt that Donald Trump’s administration was where he was meant to work.
“It was a natural fit,” Naved Jafry said in an interview. Citing connections across the military, business and academia, he said: “I bring, and draw on, experiences from different areas of knowledge, like a polymath.”
Jafry was contracted to work for Trump’s housing and urban development department (Hud). His government email signature said his title was senior adviser. Jafry said he used his role to advocate for “microcities”, where managers privately set their own laws and taxes away from central government control.
But those plans are now stalled. Jafry, 38, said he had resigned from his position with Hud after the Guardian asked him to explain multiple allegations of fraud as well as exaggerations in his biography.
…
In November 2013, a judge ordered Jafry and a fuel company he chaired to repay more than $800,000 to the family of Alfred Oglesby, a former NFL player and investor in the fuel firm, who died in 2009. Oglesby’s widow accused Jafry of fraud. Jafry has not paid the money. Debt collectors said they had been trying to locate him for years.
David Freedman, an attorney for Oglesby’s family, said he was surprised Jafry had resurfaced in an influential role in the government. “If he is advising Donald Trump we’re screwed – we should just surrender to North Korea right now,” said Freedman….
House Republicans are privately venting that they’ve fumbled the release of their own Russia probe report.
The blaring headline the GOP wanted from this week’s rollout was clear: After a year of searching, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee found no evidence that President Donald Trump or his associates aided Moscow’s scheme to interfere in the 2016 election but that the nation must still prepare for another assault from the Kremlin.
Instead, much of the focus has been on lawmakers’ startling conclusion that the nation’s intelligence agencies botched their analysis when they determined Russia wanted Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton.
The finding once again pitted the committee’s Republicans against the leaders of the intelligence community and led to a frenzy of news coverage that put members on the defensive. And rather than seizing an opportunity to highlight the Russian threat and undermine lingering questions about the Trump campaign’s Russian contacts, Republicans faced a political headache of their own making.
The muddled messaging was the subject of a closed-door meeting of committee Republicans on Wednesday….
Speaker Paul Ryan’s office also felt compelled to intervene as Republicans offered increasingly scattershot responses in interviews, with some more eager to criticize the agencies than others….
[Sorry – I missed that blf shared the Jafry story @ #60 above.]
Further to #57 – “Dems: Trump Officials Worked With Activists To Target State Dept. Career Staff”: “Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) — the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, respectively — made the claims in a letter dated Thursday to White House chief of staff John Kelly and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan. In the letter, Cummings and Engel requested documents and interviews related to the reassignment of State Department career staff and civil servants.”
Council of Europe may be forced to cut jobs without contributions from Moscow
[…]
The Council of Europe, the 47-nation organisation that oversees the European court of human rights, faces a shortfall of at least €42.65m (£37.6m), 10% of its annual budget, according to an official report, meaning it could be forced to cut jobs.
The organisation is facing “an unprecedented budgetary crisis”, according to the report, following Russia’s decision to suspend payments in 2017 over its representation in the council’s Strasbourg assembly and Turkey’s decision to slash its contributions.
[…]
The budget crunch is likely to play into the fraught debate over whether Russia should remain a member of the Council of Europe. The continent’s guardian of democracy and human rights, which is separate from the EU, was set up in 1949 and its membership spans the continent. Russia joined in 1996, but Moscow has become increasingly angered by ECHR rulings during Vladimir Putin’s time in power.
[…]
Its secretary general, Thorbjørn Jagland, wants to keep Russia as a member so its 140 million people have access to the court of human rights. Jagland’s spokesman said: “He emphasises the ECHR and the court continue to be of vital importance for Russian citizens and that therefore a departure of Russia from the Council of Europe would make things even worse from a human rights perspective.”.
Russian human rights activists, battling a heavily politicised judicial system at home, fear ordinary people would lose human rights protections if Russia left.
[…]
Countries are split over how and when Russian delegates could return to the parliamentary assembly. Russian deputies walked out of the assembly in 2014 after losing their voting rights, following the annexation of Crimea.
Moscow insists it will not restore payments until its deputies sit in the chamber again. Western MPs say Russia has chosen not to take part in the assembly, after the one year ban on voting expired in 2015.
Congressional investigators have learned that a longtime attorney for the National Rifle Association expressed concerns about the group’s ties to Russia and possible involvement in channeling Russian money into the 2016 elections to help Donald Trump, two sources familiar with the matter say.
Cleta Mitchell, a former NRA board member who has done legal work for the organization, is on a newly disclosed list of people whom Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are seeking to interview. Democratic investigators for that committee’s Senate counterpart also are interested in what she may know about relationships between the NRA or its allies and wealthy Russians, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
The sources declined to detail the specific nature of the information prompting investigators’ interest in Mitchell, a prominent gun rights champion, election law specialist and veteran conservative operative.
Mitchell told McClatchy in an email that any suggestion she has concerns about the NRA’s Russia connections is a “complete fabrication.”…
Constantin Reliu loses claim against being registered as dead, because he appealed too late
A Romanian court has rejected a man’s claim that he is alive, after he was officially registered as dead.
A court spokeswoman said on Friday that 63-year-old Constantin Reliu lost his case in the north-east city of Vasului because he appealed too late. The ruling is final.
Media reported Reliu went to Turkey in 1992 for work and lost contact with his family in Romania. Hearing no news from her husband, his wife managed to get a death certificate for him in 2016.
Turkish authorities located Reliu this year with expired papers and deported him. When he arrived in Romania, he discovered he had been declared dead.
He was quoted as saying: “I am officially dead, although I’m alive, I have no income and because I am listed dead, I can’t do anything.”
The “judge(s?)” that decided an obviously alive individual is dead because of what is written on some pieces of paper are some of the bestest people. Hair furor will hire them soon (provided that aren’t guilty of being brown or black, or gay, or female, or Muslim, or…).
[…]
Given that the health service [UK’s NHS] is already heavily strapped for cash and that some patients are being denied treatments because they are deemed to be too expensive, the news this week that the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine — formerly the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital — will no longer be able to provide homeopathic remedies on the NHS from next month comes not a moment too soon. The head of NHS England, Sir Simon Stevens has described homeopathy as “at best a placebo” and at worst a misuse of public funds. No doubt there will be some, Prince Charles possibly among them, who swear by homeopathy and will be devastated it is no longer freely available. But serious homeopaths should look on this as a win-win situation. Homeopathy has always worked on the “less is more” basis: some formulations have one part per trillion of the active ingredient and others are diluted so far that scientists have been unable to locate a single molecule of the substance involved. Homeopaths have explained this anomaly as water’s ability to retain the memory of something that was once in it. So on this basis the RLHIM should be more effective than ever now that it will be powered by the memory of NHS cash.
Protests were held across Brazil after a popular Rio city councillor and her driver were shot dead by two men in what appears to have been a targeted assassination.
Marielle Franco, 38, was a groundbreaking politician who had become a voice for disadvantaged people in the teeming favelas that are home to almost one-quarter of Rio de Janeiro’s population, where grinding poverty, police brutality and shootouts with drug gangs are routine.
Richard Nunes, Rio’s head of public security, said there would be a “full investigation” into the deaths, which came despite* the military taking charge of policing in the city last month after a surge in violence.
…
On Thursday afternoon crowds gathered outside Rio de Janeiro’s council chamber chanting “not one step backwards” ahead of a ceremony in honour of Franco inside. Many wept as her coffin was carried inside.
The spontaneous demonstration brought together union members, feminists, leftists and residents of the city’s poorer communities.
Camila Pontes, 30, a communications officer, sheltered from the hot sun under an umbrella. “I feel lost, without hope,” she said. “It is a very tough blow for anyone who fights for justice, for freedom, for equality.”
Franco was a gay black woman who defied the odds of Rio politics to win the fifth-highest vote count among council members when she was elected in 2016. She was an expert on police violence and had recently accused officers of being overly aggressive in searching residents of gang-controlled shantytowns. A member of a leftist party, Franco was also known for her social work in favelas. She was in her first term in office.
“She was a symbol of the politics we believe in,” said communications student Jefferson Barbosa, 21, who worked with Franco at the state legislature.
“I have never been so scared,” he said. “People are shocked with what happened. They did this to Mari, one of the most popular lawmakers in Rio. What will stop them doing this to others?”…
Subsequent discussion made it clear that Brzezinski had asked because they’ve heard things about a particular Trump associate they wouldn’t name.
blfsays
Ozland’s nazis are all in spittle-flecked frothing bother about a proposal in S.Africa to amend its constitution to allow for property seizures (more on this backstory below (second excerpt)), Peter Dutton’s offer to white South African farmers started on the far right. Peter Dutton is Ozland’s Minister for Home Affairs, and formerly the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, meaning he was in charge of the concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru (alarm bells should be ringing!). The Grauniad’s edits are in {curly braces}:
The myth of white genocide is a disturbing example of how alt-right ideology is mainstreamed and sold as policy
Peter Dutton is considering fast-track visas for white South African farmers, after the issue was put on the national agenda by News Corp papers.
News’s campaign on the issue included reporting and two crucial columns by Miranda Devine and Caroline Marcus, which argued that the the latest moves on land reform put the country’s farmers in grave peril.
In announcing his interest in their plight, Dutton, Australia’s home affairs minister, said I think these people deserve special attention and we’re certainly applying that special attention now. He described them as people who would easily integrate into our society.
Earlier, Devine had written about the kinship between Australians and our oppressed white, Christian, industrious, rugby and cricket-playing Commonwealth cousins, saying that they would integrate seamlessly.
Marcus had connected the situation to a broader picture of what she described as reverse racism, writing that the truth is, there are versions of this anti-white, vengeance theme swirling in movements around the western world, from Black Lives Matter in the US to Invasion Day protests back home.
By emphasising white kinship and white peril, the paper’s columnists may have gotten the result they were looking for. But they weren’t the only outlet on 12 March to urge their government to help the farmers.
The same day, on American race realist website, VDare, Leo Hohmann, the author of a recent book on the supposed stealth invasion” of the west by Muslim immigrants, was saying that the farmers have their collective heads on the block.
Land reform, Hohmann warned, threatened them with extermination. He demanded that Donald Trump issue an executive order to carry out a sweeping rescue mission and admit them as refugees. It was just the latest of many articles VDare has run asking that farmers be admitted as refugees.
Stories on the alleged persecution of white farmers have also been posted in March on far-right sites from Richard Spencer[…] to American Renaissance.
[…]
And Marcus’s eye-popping claim that being a South African farmer is the most dangerous job in the world, though not supported by the evidence, certainly is supported by a range of far-right and conspiracist websites.
[…]
[… A petition has been heavily promoted on far-right websites and podcasts] offers lurid but nonspecific stories of whites being killed in the most sadistic ways imaginable. It asks that they be prioritised over people from the Middle East. South African whites, it says, are threatened with complete genocide and are compatible with our culture and civilization.
[…]
Ann Coulter remarked last year that the farmers are the only real refugees. On his prime-time Fox News show earlier this month, Tucker Carlson claimed the country was falling apart as a result of land reform. [UK überloon] Katie Hopkins is planning a documentary on the subject [focusing] on the alleged torture of farmers.
It’s also been a big topic on the internet’s major hub for Trump supporters, The Donald.
[…]
[… T]he far right has managed to establish a myth that “a white genocide, targeting white farmers in particular has been under way since the ANC came to power in 1994” [quoting Quartz].
More broadly, the idea that whites are under attack in various places and white solidarity against such attacks is crucial, is a basic component of the belief system known as white nationalism.
As far back as 2015, experts were warning of the “globalisation of white nationalism”. Morris Dees and Richard Cohen from the Southern Poverty Law Center outlined this development in the wake of racist murders by Dylann Roof, who was obsessed and affronted by the end of white supremacist rule in South Africa’s neighbour, Rhodesia.
Then, they said that “from the United States and Canada to Europe, Australia and New Zealand{…} white supremacists don’t see borders; they see a white tribe under attack by people of colour across the globe”.
What they couldn’t have anticipated ahead of the era of Trump and the alt right is how far the tenets of white nationalism would be mainstreamed.
[…]
[… T]he policy being considered by a government, which also detains Middle Eastern refugees with no hope of entering the country, is equally white nationalist on its face.
Already, Dutton’s move is being celebrated in white supremacist circles. It seems likely that, if implemented, it will further embolden racist movements worldwide.
[…]
The first link embedded in the above excerpt explains what S.Africa is proposing, and the lack of evidence for teh nazi claims (South Africa criticises Australian plan to fast-track white farmer visas, my emboldening):
Security studies experts say there’s no evidence to support claims that white farmers are more targeted than anyone else
[…]
Dutton said white farmers deserved special attention due to the horrific circumstances of land seizures and violence. It follows recent reports in Australian media of numerous and increasing cases of rape and torture carried out on white farmers and a white minority in South Africa being murdered and tortured off their farms”.
However, Gareth Newham at the Institute for Security Studies, one of South Africa’s leading authorities on crime statistics, said there was no evidence to support the notion that white farmers were targeted more than anyone else in the country.
“In fact, young black males living in poor urban areas like Khayelitsha and Lange face a far greater risk of being murdered. The murder rate there is between 200 and 300 murders per 100,000 people,” he said. Even the highest estimates of farm murders stand at 133 per 100,000 people, and that includes both black and white murder victims.
Estimates of the rate of white farm murders are fiercely contested. “It’s a difficult question to answer because we don’t really know exactly how many white South Africa farmers there are,” said Newham.
“All these methodologies are hugely flawed because if you start ring-fencing certain people because of their race you are missing out on the bigger context of how violence and murder takes place in South Africa. I wouldn’t say that white farmers are more likely to be murdered than other groups, we don’t have enough evidence of that,” he added.
Newham said crime rates in general were going up, and the trend was not specific to white farmers.
Fact-checking organisation Africa Check, in a detailed report on the subject of farm murders in general — not just of white farmers — suggested that another credible estimate of the farm murder rate could be as low as 0.4 murders per 100,000 people. But it too concluded that an accurate figure is “near impossible” to determine.
Last month, South Africa’s parliament passed a motion to begin the process of amending South Africa’s constitution to allow for the expropriation of land without compensation. If followed through, this motion is likely to disproportionately affect white farmers, given that this group enjoys a disproportionately large share of land ownership. But no farms have yet been seized, nor is there any immediate plan by the government to do so.
According to the November 2017 Land Audit Report, 72% of agricultural land is owned by white farmers. White people make up 8% of South Africa’s population.
The inequality in land ownership is a legacy of apartheid in South Africa, and all major political parties agree on the need for extensive land reform. The current land reform policy is based on the principle of “willing buyer, willing seller”, and has largely failed to result in meaningful transformation.
Koketso Moeti, executive director of Amandla.mobi, a local community advocacy organisation, said: “Statistics show black South Africans are the most affected by crime, landlessness and violence, as a result of historic and current forms of dispossession and injustices. We hear stories of horrific circumstances from our members every day. Where is the support for them?”
Not necessarily coincidentally, Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp, who are spreading this nonsense via Fox, and in Ozland, etc., is an Ozlandian (Australian), albeit he now has USAian citizenship.
Josh Dawsey: “Senior White House person messages: ‘Something is going to happen today. I just don’t think anyone knows what it is’. Helpful but honest.”
Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson of Britain said on Friday that it was “overwhelmingly likely” that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia personally ordered the nerve agent attack against a former Russian spy this month.
Mr. Johnson’s remarks were a significant escalation in the dispute between London and Moscow, directly linking the Russian leader to the poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, in the English city of Salisbury.
Until Friday, British officials had been careful to give the Kremlin a little room for deniability, saying that Russia had either directed the attack or had allowed its chemical weapons to fall into the hands of unspecified rogue actors. That door may have been only slightly ajar, but Mr. Johnson appeared to shut it.
“Our quarrel is with Putin’s Kremlin and with his decision, and we think it overwhelmingly likely that it was his decision to direct the use of a nerve agent on the streets of the U.K., on the streets of Europe, for the first time since the Second World War,” Mr. Johnson said at a news conference. “That is why we’re at odds with Russia.”
Mr. Johnson has a history of going further in his statements than Prime Minister Theresa May and other cabinet ministers, and it was not immediately clear whether his comments represented a new official position for the government.
…
Britain has sought to gather international condemnation against Russia over the poisoning, making its case to an array of international bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, and to several allies. On Thursday, the leaders of France, Germany and the United States joined Mrs. May in blaming Russia.
The following morning, Mrs. May spoke with her Australian counterpart, Malcolm Turnbull….
The smirking denials of Russian officials, while they and the state media boast and threaten, are sickeningly reminiscent of Hitler’s behavior during the 1930s as he committed one criminal act of aggression and contempt after another.
[…]
Two Durham University academics who have lived in the UK for 11 years have been given two weeks to leave the country after undertaking humanitarian work in Mexico.
Dr Ernesto Schwartz-Marín and Dr Arely Cruz-Santiago […] travelled to Mexico in 2014 and 2015 to work with victims of gang violence and build a DNA database to help locate missing people.
But the Home Office has told Schwartz-Marín and Cruz-Santiago […] they must leave the UK after spending more time overseas than was allowed on his visa — despite the existence of an exemption to this rule for those helping with humanitarian crises. The humanitarian project in Mexico that the couple were working on was backed by the government-funded Economic and Social Research Council and carried out as part of their work at Durham University.
[…]
The couple are concerned they will be put at risk if they return to Mexico because of their work with gang violence victims. “It’s one of the biggest war zones in Latin America, with 160,000 people killed in the last 10 years,” Schwartz-Marín told the Guardian. “People who we have worked with have died.”
They would also come under pressure to share sensitive data compiled through their project.
[…]
Teh Home Office has been blundering around like a gang of drunken nazis concocting increasingly bizarre reasons to illegally deport people (and crass handing of asylum claims, Asylum interview: 10 examples of absurdity from the Home Office: “Applying is no joke, but some of the questioning and the grounds for refusal appear farcical”). This is only the latest (known) example.
A murder investigation has been launched following the results of a post mortem into the death of 68-year-old Russian businessman Nikolay Glushkov.
Mr Glushkov’s family has been informed and is being supported by family liaison officers at this difficult time.
Police were called by London Ambulance Service at 22:46hrs on Monday, 12 March, after Mr Glushkov was found dead at his home in Clarence Avenue, New Malden.
Officers attended and an investigation was launched into his death, which at that stage was treated as unexplained.
A special post mortem began on Thursday, 15 March and we received the pathologist report today (Friday, 16 March), which gave the cause of death as compression to the neck.
His family have been informed.
The Met Police’s Counter Terrorism Command, which has led the investigation from the outset, is now treating Mr Glushkov’s death as murder.
As a precaution, the command is retaining primacy for the investigation because of the associations Mr Glushkov is believed to have had….
Andrea Mitchell: “I will never forget the day #LouiseSlaughter and 6 other House Democratic Congresswomen marched to the Senate to demand that the all-male Senate Judiciary committee delay a final vote on Clarence Thomas October 8 1991. She lost that battle but was a fighter to the end. RIP”
[…] In Maine, a Republican state House candidate, Leslie Gibson, lashed out at some of the student activists in south Florida working on gun reforms, calling one student a “skinhead lesbian” and denouncing another as a “bald faced liar.” Gibson was running unopposed.
Now, however, he has a Democratic rival: Eryn Gilchrist told the Portland Press Herald she didn’t intend to run for elected office, but she felt “horrified and embarrassed” at the thought of Gibson representing her.
Emma González, the “skinhead lesbian” presumably, is openly bisexual.
[…] Supply-side economics is not merely a generalized preference for small government with low taxes, but a commitment to the cause of low taxes, particularly for high earners, that borders on theological. […] The appointment of Lawrence Kudlow as head of the National Economic Council indicates how firmly supply-siders control Republican economic policy, and how little impact years of failed analysis have had upon their place of power. […]
The purest supply-siders, like Kudlow, go further and deeper in their commitment. Kudlow attributes every positive economic indicator to lower taxes, and every piece of negative news to higher taxes. While that sounds absurd, it is the consistent theme he has maintained throughout his career […] It’s a very simple and blunt kind of kookery.
In 1993, when Bill Clinton proposed an increase in the top tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent, Kudlow wrote, “There is no question that President Clinton’s across-the-board tax increases … will throw a wet blanket over the recovery and depress the economy’s long-run potential to grow.” This was wrong. Instead, a boom ensued. […]
By the time George W. Bush took office, Kudlow was plumping for his tax-cut plan. Kudlow not only endorsed Bush’s argument that the budget surplus he inherited from Clinton — the one Kudlow and his allies had insisted in 1993 could never happen, because the tax hikes would strangle the economy — would turn out to be even larger than forecast. “Faster economic growth and more profitable productivity returns will generate higher tax revenues at the new lower tax-rate levels. Future budget surpluses will rise, not fall.” This was wrong, too. […]
[…] “The shock therapy of decisive war will elevate the stock market by a couple-thousand points,” he predicted in 2002. That was wrong. He began to insist that the housing bubble that was forming was a hallucination […] (“There’s no recession coming. The pessimistas were wrong. It’s not going to happen. […],” he wrote in July 2008). All of this was wrong. It was historically, massively wrong.
When Obama took office, Kudlow was detecting an “inflationary bubble.” That was wrong. […] and when the recovery proceeded, by 2011, he credited the Bush tax cuts for the recovery. […] By 2012, Kudlow found new grounds to test out his theories: Kansas, where he advised Republican governor Sam Brownback to implement a sweeping tax-cut plan that would produce faster growth. This was wrong. […]
The passage of the Trump tax cuts follow from the party’s “tax cuts über alles” philosophy. In the face of widespread social and economic problems, the one legislative goal the party could agree upon was reducing taxes paid by business owners. […]The onset of deficits exceeding a trillion dollars a year in the midst of low unemployment has not prompted any regret, or even a hint of willingness to compromise […]
This was the Trump agenda even with the relatively moderate Gary Cohn running the National Economic Council. Now that true believer Lawrence Kudlow is taking the helm, the dawn of fiscal sanity in the GOP is receding ever farther into the distant future.
The revelations over Ben Carson’s furniture have shone a light on Trump’s people — and their fondness for first-class travel and military jets
[…]
● Ben Carson […]
● Steve Mnuchin: The treasury secretary, a former Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer who is worth as much as $35m, managed to run up bills in excess of $800,000 in his first six months in office for travel on military jets. It’s true that Mnuchin withdrew a request for a US air force jet for his honeymoon in Scotland, France and Italy, after marrying the Scottish actor Louise Linton last summer at the Trump International hotel near the White House. […]
After the trip [to visit Fort Knox and view the solar eclipse], Mnuchin’s wife caused a brouhaha when she posted a picture of herself on Instagram exiting the government aircraft with her husband, noting her designer clothing and accessories. […] When a woman from Oregon commented online: “Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable”, Linton responded: Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable! Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? […]
Mrs Mnuchin, you are Scottish. Although I rather suspect they don’t want you either. Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge says Linton later apologized, and also notes that’s not the first time she’s been a privileged arse:
[…] In 2016, she drew widespread criticism for her self-published memoir about her experiences in Zambia, titled In Congo’s Shadow […]. An excerpt from the memoir, published in The Telegraph, drew intense scrutiny, with many readers objecting to her portrayal of Zambia. The Zambian High Commission in London and others criticised the book for its inaccuracies and promotion of the false narrative of “the white saviour”.
Shortly after The Telegraph published its article, Linton withdrew her book from sale. She later apologised for causing offence […]
[Shona Hampel, longtime friend of Linton, wrote in an March 2018 Elle profile:]
Louise was blessed and fortunate enough to be raised in a Scottish castle, and to not understand the reality of some human beings with a different background.
Back to the Grauniad’s article on hair furor’s sleazebags:
● Scott Pruitt: The environment secretary has said he has to travel first-class because of threats from members of the public who object to his climate-change-denying, regulation-slashing mission in government. […]
He also spent as much as $43,000 on a soundproof “privacy booth” inside his office to prevent eavesdropping on his phone calls and $9,000 for biometric locks and to have his office swept for listening devices. Earlier this month it was reported that he used $6,500 in public money to hire a private media firm with strong Republican ties to help produce a report promoting his accomplishments.
● David Shulkin: The secretary of veterans affairs, who joined the department during the Obama administration, is reportedly wobbling on his perch over complaints that he asked a member of his security detail to accompany him to a branch of Home Depot, the home improvements chain, and then obliged the person to carry his furniture purchases into his home for him.
Last month, the inspector general released a blistering report finding ethical violations in Shulkin’s trip last July to Denmark and Britain that mixed business with pleasure, including a trip to Wimbledon and a cruise down the Thames.
● Ryan Zinke: […] He has been rebuked by the department watchdog for failing to keep proper records of his travel expenses and to show clearly who paid for his wife to accompany him on work trips.
● Tom Price: The health and human services secretary was forced to resign last September following revelations that he used at least $400,000 and probably more than $1m in taxpayer funds on private and military flights for himself and his staff. As a Georgia congressman, Price was a fiscal conservative, railing against the use of private jets by members of Congress. […]
The Federal Emergency Management Agency, the federal government’s first responder to floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters, has eliminated references to climate change from its strategic planning document for the next four years.
That document, released by FEMA on Thursday, outlines plans for building preparedness and reducing the complexity of the agency. […]
FEMA is following in the footsteps of other agencies that, under Trump, are ignoring parts of their core mission in order to be politically correct in Trump world.
From the Washington Post:
Changing missions has real-world ramifications. What does it mean when the State Department is no longer in the business of democracy promotion? When the federal consumer protection bureau privileges cutting regulations for companies over protecting citizens? The answers are important…. Words matter. Trump’s appointees haven’t forgotten that – and neither should we.
Josh Marshall: “We just recorded a Josh Marshall Podcast Extra edition w Stormy lawyer Michael Avenatti. Lotsa new details on those threats to stay quiet mentioned this morning, also unnamed ‘Trump Associates’ allegedly spreading rumors & threatening Daniels. We expect to post in about an hour.”
Also, Chris Hayes will interview Felix Sater tonight on his show on MSNBC (8 PM ET).
Lawyers for President Donald Trump’s family hotel business threatened a Panamanian judicial official handling a dispute related to Trump Hotels’ management of a 70-story luxury hotel, according to a complaint filed with the anti-corruption division of Panama’s chief prosecutor.
The complaint reviewed by The Associated Press said lawyers from the firm representing Trump’s hotel management business accosted a justice of the peace, Marisol Carrera, in her office after she ruled against Trump’s business on a minor issue in the fight over control of the Trump-branded luxury hotel. The abuse continued, she wrote, even after she called police to defuse the situation.
Trump’s lawyers dispute the claims, and the magistrate declined to discuss the matter with the AP.
…
The behavior described in Carrera’s complaint occurred during the time Miami-based private equity investor Orestes Fintiklis was vying for control of the hotel, located within a high-rise that also contains a casino and a condo association.
The magistrate was not involved in the main hotel dispute, but ruled against Trump’s interests in a fight over control of the office containing the hotel’s closed-circuit security system.
Trump’s lawyers from the Panama City law firm of Britton & Iglesias berated her and her staff in her office, she said.
“I felt intimidated and threatened,” wrote Carrera, who handles basic legal matters and disputes as part of her job as justice of the peace for Panama City’s government.
Trump’s attorneys in Panama denied any misconduct….
…Lamo was more recently widely known for his involvement in passing information on whistleblower Chelsea Manning, a former US Army soldier who befriended Lamo. In an internet chat, Manning told Lamo that she had downloaded and burned classified files to a disk.
Lamo, with help from two friends in military intelligence, informed the US military of the breach. Manning was later arrested and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Her sentence was later commuted by President Barack Obama, and she was released last year.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2011, Lamo said his actions caused him “lasting regret.”
After seven years of delays, the Israeli governing parties have agreed the final terms of controversial new legislation that would define Israel exclusively as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
[…]
Approval by the parliament’s justice committee this week of the Basic Law, which carries much greater weight than normal legislation, marks a dangerous turning-point for Palestinians, according to analysts.
[…]
It effectively blocks any chance for Israel’s large Palestinian minority — one in five of the population — to reform Israel in the future into a normal, Western-style democracy.
In the words of one of the handful of Palestinian members of the Israeli parliament, Aida Touma-Suleiman, the bill “institutionalises an apartheid regime in the most blatant way”.
But equally significantly, and largely unnoticed, the Basic Law paves the way for Israel’s right-wing government to consolidate and expand the annexation of Palestinian lands under occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — and stymie any legal moves intended to prevent such efforts.
[…]
The proposed Basic Law has attracted scrutiny chiefly for the unconcealed nature of its anti-democratic provisions.
The final version approved this week demotes the status of Arabic — the mother tongue of one-fifth of Israel’s citizens — so that it is no longer an official language alongside Hebrew.
It also promotes Jewish communities that strictly enforce rules to exclude Israel’s 1.8 million Palestinian citizens. It reiterates Israel’s mission to “ingather the exiles”, restricting immigration to Jews only, and prioritises the rights of Jews abroad over those of the country’s Palestinian citizens.
Most significant of all, it dispenses with any “democratic” component in Israel’s self-definition. Israel’s “Jewishness” is made paramount.
[…]
[… M]any critics, including Israeli scholars, argue it is impossible for Israel to be both “Jewish and democratic” — any more than it could be “white and democratic” or “Christian and democratic”. They describe Israel as a non-democratic type of state known as an “ethnocracy”.
[…]
[… After the 1992 Basic Law on Freedom and Human Dignity] defined Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”, legal rights groups initiated challenges in the courts for Israel to respect equality.
That gradually exposed the unresolvable contradictions between the state’s “Jewish and democratic” claims, according to Ahmad Saadi, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva.
[…]
Last month, the far-right justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, cited [a lawsuit brought under the 1992 Basic Law as] a reason for the nation-state Basic Law, saying: It’s all right for a Jewish community to, by definition, be only Jewish.
[…]
Political challenges have compounded the legal ones. In 2006, Palestinian leaders in Israel produced a document, the Future Vision, demanding that Israel reform from being a Jewish state into a civic democracy. They urged that Israel become a “consensual democracy”, where all citizens had equal rights.
In a highly unusual move, the Shin Bet, Israel’s secret police agency, responded in public. They called the document subversive and warned they would thwart any activity, even if legal, to promote its aims.
Since then, the figurehead of the democratisation campaign, Azmi Bishara, has been forced into exile, accused of treason.
Israel has also passed a series of measures to weaken the standing of Palestinian politicians in parliament, including an Expulsion Law that allows Jewish legislators to overthrow Palestinian colleagues.
[…]
Additionally, Shaked, the justice minster, has linked the Jewish Nation-State Bill to revisions she is making to another constitutional-type Basic Law, one dealing with legislation.
Jafar Farah, head of Mossawa, an advocacy group for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, pointed out this would allow the governing coalition to reverse any ruling by the Israeli supreme court against a piece of legislation, even if it violated human rights. The court’s powers of judicial review would be voided.
“This legislation will tie the judges’ hands,” Farah told Al Jazeera. “They won’t be able to intervene in government decisions.”
[…]
In the past 20 years court rulings have sharpened the universal values more than the state’s Jewish character, [Shaked said].
[…]
Farah noted Israel has still not decided on its territorial limits.
“Israel refuses to define its borders and then states through this Basic Law that only the Jewish people have a unique right to self-determination in the region,” he said.
That could open the door to Israeli consolidating its hold on occupied East Jerusalem and accelerating a policy of creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Trump is preparing to move the US embassy to Jerusalem, pre-empting in Israel’s favour one of the traditional final-status issues that were supposed to be settled in peace talks with the Palestinians.
At the same time, Israel is drafting legislation that would strip tens of thousands of Palestinians of their residency rights in occupied East Jerusalem, while annexing parts of the West Bank to Jerusalem to skew the city’s demography towards a solid Jewish majority.
In the words of Nir Hasson, a veteran Israeli reporter on Jerusalem: “The Israeli political system has already understood that Jerusalem is an anomaly that has to be solved.”
It intends, therefore, to provide a solution that refuses to “recognise the place of the Palestinians in the city”.
Proving Hasson’s point, the parliament passed last week a law empowering the government to expel Palestinians from Jerusalem.
These violations of human rights and international law would be hard for the supreme court to stomach.
But if the Israeli government carries on its current path, the courts will soon have no say on such matters, observed Farah.
Death threats aimed at Stephanie Clifford and at her lawyer:
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing porn actress Stephanie Clifford in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump, told TPM’s “Josh Marshall Podcast” on Friday that both he and Clifford, who uses the stage name Stormy Daniels, fear for their physical safety.
Avenatti told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier Friday morning that Clifford has been “physically threatened,” but he emphasized to TPM later on Friday that he and his client are taking at least some of those threats seriously.
“I think she’s very concerned about her physical safety right now, and I think she has very — or a lot of reasons to be concerned. I likewise am slightly concerned about my physical safety,” Avenatti told TPM’s Josh Marshall. “There’s been a series of death threats that have been received by her and me. There’s a lot of kooky people out there. Many of those threats we laugh off, some of which we don’t laugh off. But regardless of the death threats, or threats of injury to us or our families, we’re not going home. We’re not packing up.” […]
Steve Bannon is still touring Europe, and still stirring up trouble. He had this to say about Mussolini:
[…] “You put the juice back in Mussolini,” Bannon said, referring to Farrell’s [Nicholas Farrell] book. “He was clearly loved by women. He was a guy’s guy. He has all that virility. He also had amazing fashion sense, right, that whole thing with the uniforms. I’m fascinated by Mussolini.” […]
When Farrell asked Bannon whether his ideology is similar to fascism, Bannon replied, “This is all theoretical bullshit. I don’t know. Populism, fascism — who cares?” […]
Now that Rex Tillerson has been fired, it looks like Trump is sending his daughter Ivanka to fill in as Secretary of State:
South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha will meet with U.S. President Donald Trump’s daughter during her visit to the U.S. […]
The ministry has yet to disclose the details of the meeting, including the purpose and the date. There’s speculation the two will exchange opinions regarding the forthcoming summits between the two Koreas and between the U.S. and the North.
According to Noh, during her three-day visit to Washington from Thursday, Kang will also meet with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan, who is serving as the acting secretary following the dismissal of Rex Tillerson, to discuss pending issues between Seoul and Washington, including the North Korean nuclear issue.
Noh said Kang will also meet with U.S. Congressional leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan, Senator Cory Gardner who is the chairman of the Subcommittee on East Asia and the Pacific, and Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
Another South Korean official said Kang also plans to meet with U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross possibly to discuss U.S. tariff measures on South Korean steel products.
Emmanuel Macron tweeted a few hours ago: “Je veux avoir un mot de solidarité pour nos amis britanniques. Tout porte à croire que le gouvernement russe est impliqué. Nous réaffirmons notre volonté commune d’interdire toute utilisation d’arme chimique.”
Republicans in Georgia continue to look for ways to suppress the black vote:
Georgia Republicans are advancing a bill through the state legislature that would suppress African-American turnout by eliminating Sunday voting and cutting the hours that polls are open in Atlanta.
The bill, SB 363, would force polls in the majority African American city of Atlanta to close an hour earlier — 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. — and would eliminate early voting on the Sunday before Election Day. That Sunday is often a high-turnout day for African American voters because of Souls to the Polls events that encourage people to cast ballots early after attending church. […]
Just a handful of states still cling to one of the cruelest provisions from 1990s welfare reform.
Indiana is set to allow formerly incarcerated drug offenders to access food stamps starting next year, after lawmakers sent Gov. Eric Holcomb (R) a bill ending the state’s longstanding restrictions on food aid to people who have already served their time.
While it’s tough to gauge exactly how many Indiana residents would have their access to food stamps restored by the law, the number is likely in the thousands. A fiscal note on an earlier version of the idea reported that administrators had denied 6,613 applications for food stamps due to a felony drug conviction over a recent 12-month period. […]
Such bans are now widely understood to be self-defeating, as depriving someone of basic food assistance as they run through the various headwinds of re-entry into society after prison only increases the chances they’ll return to criminal activity in order to survive. The lifetime prohibition from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is encouraged under federal law. […]
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is reportedly planning to further restrict the use of scientific evidence in rule-making. The plans are inspired by efforts championed by one of Congress’ most notorious climate science deniers, House Science, Space, and Technology Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX). […]
If adopted, the plan would require the EPA to rely only on scientific studies where the underlying data used by the researchers is made public. The impact would be to impose a dramatic burden on EPA officials effectively limiting their ability to introduce new protections for health and the environment.
It comes amidst an ongoing effort by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to limit the input from scientists in favor of industry.
The idea for the new plan comes from Smith who has for years been campaigning against what he believes are EPA rules based on “secret science.” […]
[…] Yabucoa, a town of about 35,000 on the southeastern corner of Puerto Rico, was devastated by Hurricane Maria. The winds destroyed concrete homes that had withstood prior hurricanes […] leaving it the hardest hit city on an island wracked with devastation.
Officials estimate that roughly 1,500 homes were destroyed, along with 95 percent of all municipal infrastructure.
With the six-month anniversary of the storm approaching on Tuesday, just 35 percent of the town is energized. The town is providing water to its citizens by using 25 generators to power pumps, and significant damage can be seen throughout town, including piles of debris near city hall. […]
“Steve Mnuchin’s office was told that a commercial flight to Miami wold cost $688 per person while a government flight would cost a total of $26,953.33. Mnuchin took a military flight that cost $45,136.”
President Donald Trump’s national security adviser H.R. McMaster isn’t getting fired, he’s getting Tillersoned – kept in a state of perpetual limbo about his future in the administration, aware that his unpredictable boss could keep him around indefinitely or terminate him at a moment’s notice. […]
[…] A senior European official said the EU’s response list was for “stakeholder consultations” and added that the total value of American exports targeted could reach “€6.4 billion all added together.”
The Commission needed to act now to make sure it notified the lists to the WTO within a 90-day deadline, but the decision whether to use the lists would be taken only after three months. Brussels needed to act now because “you may be exempted today and three months later the situation changes.” […]
Barry McCaffrey: “Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.”
SC @136, furthermore, it looks like Kelly may have called Tillerson, but either Kelly did not make it clear that Trump was firing him, and/or Tillerson thought that after he talked to Trump he would still have a job.
Tillerson says Kelly woke him up with a call. That’s different from sitting on the toilet, which, even if true, you do not tell journalists. You do not go out of your way to humiliate employees that you are firing … unless you are part of the Trump administration.
Andrea Mitchell reports that on the flight back to the U.S., Tillerson was talking to journalists onboard the plane about future events: plans for talks with North Korea, etc. That doesn’t sound like a man who knew he had been fired.
Avenatti: “How can President Donald Trump seek $20 million in damages against my client based on an agreement that he and Mr. Cohen claim Mr. Trump never was a party to and knew nothing about? #notwellthoughtout #sloppy #checkmate”
Avenatti: “The fact that a sitting president is pursuing over $20M in bogus ‘damages’ against a private citizen, who is only trying to tell the public what really happened, is remarkable. Likely unprecedented in our history. We are NOT going away and we will NOT be intimidated. #basta”
Andrea Mitchell: “One suggestion from a McCabe supporter: if a friendly member of Congress hired him for a week he could possibly qualify for pension benefits by extending his service the extra days.”
I have no idea whatsoever if this is true, but if it is do it.
Update to #146 – Carole Cadwalladr, 5 minutes ago: “Tomorrow you will understand how absolutely outrageous it is that Facebook have done this now…two years after they first knew. And failed to inform their users.”
SC @148, so Jeff Sessions fired McCabe at about 10:00 PM on a Friday night, about 48 hours before McCabe was due to retire. Even if it turns out that McCabe misled investigators about his talks with the Wall Street Journal (not likely), or even if investigators misunderstood testimony given by McCabe, there is no reason other than purely evil trumpishness to fire a civil servant with 22 years of admittedly great service in a way that will strip him of his pension.
There’s political stink all over this. Trump started going after McCabe during the campaign, and he continued going after McCabe during the first year of his presidency. Trump called for McCabe to be fired, (and that was improper right there). Trump specifically threatened McCabe’s pension (on Twitter). This looks like Trump being petty, vindictive … and like Trump is desperate to discredit the witnesses to the events leading up to Comey’s firing.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders called McCabe a “bad actor” during a press conference. That’s improper.
Trump’s name, and his alias in the Stormy Daniels contract, now appear on court papers filed by Trump and his attorney Cohen to have the lawsuit moved from a state court in California to a Federal court in which Trump appointed the judges.
Trump and Cohen are also claiming that Stormy Daniels owes them $20 million.
Remember Trump telling McCabe to ask his wife what it feels it like to be a loser? (McCabe’s wife ran for office as a Democrat. McCabe himself is a lifelong Republican.)
I hope this incident is part of what takes Trump down.
You’ve seen the news of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe’s firing by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, late on a Friday evening East Coast time. Sessions’ full statement is at the bottom of Tierney Sneed’s report. Let’s stipulate that dishonesty, under oath, by an FBI official is a grave matter. That’s what Sessions’ cites in firing McCabe, and he lays it on the findings of the Justice Department’s inspector general and the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility. We haven’t seen their reports yet, so it is difficult to make an independent assessment. But this whole thing stinks.
The timing, the speed of the decision, the relentless public attacks from the President, first McCabe’s removal from his post under intense White House pressure and now his firing by an attorney general himself under enormous pressure from the President.
I have no brief for McCabe but these are highly irregular circumstances, occurring simultaneously with historically unprecedented levels of White House interference with Justice Department functions. You can’t divorce his firing from that context.
McCabe himself tonight has vehemently denied that he was dishonest in the FBI’s internal proceedings, and in what is frankly a chilling charge claims that this is all part of an effort to discredit him as a witness against the president in his firing of James Comey as FBI director. He accused the administration of waging a “war” against the FBI and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” McCabe alleged.
Think about that for a moment. The former No. 2 at the FBI is suggesting the President of the United States improperly fired the FBI director and then endeavored to discredit his top deputy, a key witness to that wrongdoing, in a conspiracy that culminated with the deputy’s firing by the attorney general of the United States.
If that doesn’t take your breath away …
Whether McCabe lacked candor or otherwise committed a firing offense, the Justice Department is in a shambles 14 months into the Trump presidency, with no end in sight. […]
Speculation: Sessions fired McCabe in order to, in part, protect Mueller. If Sessions had refused to fire McCabe, Trump would have fired Sessions. That would have left the way open to getting Mueller fired.
Sessions may have just been protecting his own ass. He didn’t want to be fired himself.
Sessions may have been trying to “protect” Trump from firing Mueller in some way.
Either way, the rules weren’t followed. Trump called for a politically-motivated firing and that firing was done.
No matter what Sessions tells himself to excuse this, he is wrong. He acted wrongly.
We have to fight back. This is @realDonaldTrump punishing anyone involved with #TrumpRussiaInvestigation. It’s how guilty people act. And shame on Sessions. In Trump’s presence he cowers like a boy, but to sing for his supper he thinks he’s acting like a man doing this.
Trump tweeted: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”
John Brennan responded to Trump’s tweet @ #166: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”
(By the way, that was McCaffrey @ #133 above. Lawrence O’Donnell was interviewing him by phone about it last night, but cut him off mid-sentence when the McCabe news broke. I don’t know why he’s still not verified on Twitter.)
…Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey. The release of this report was accelerated only after my testimony to the House Intelligence Committee revealed that I would corroborate former Director Comey’s accounts of his discussions with the President. The OIG’s focus on me and this report became a part of an unprecedented effort by the Administration, driven by the President himself, to remove me from my position, destroy my reputation, and possibly strip me of a pension that I worked 21 years to earn. The accelerated release of the report, and the punitive actions taken in response, make sense only when viewed through this lens. Thursday’s comments from the White House are just the latest example of this.
This attack on my credibility is one part of a larger effort not just to slander me personally, but to taint the FBI, law enforcement, and intelligence professionals more generally. It is part of this Administration’s ongoing war on the FBI and the efforts of the Special Counsel investigation, which continue to this day. Their persistence in this campaign only highlights the importance of the Special Counsel’s work.
I have always prided myself on serving my country with distinction and integrity, and I always encouraged those around me to do the same. Just ask them. To have my career end in this way, and to be accused of lacking candor when at worst I was distracted in the midst of chaotic events, is incredibly disappointing and unfair. But it will not erase the important work I was privileged to be a part of, the results of which will in the end be revealed for the country to see.
I have unfailing faith in the men and women of the FBI and I am confident that their efforts to seek justice will not be deterred.
Theresa May did not offer the Labour leadership the same access to highly classified information this week as David Cameron gave to Ed Miliband over Syria in 2013, The Times understands.
An intelligence briefing on the Salisbury nerve agent attack was extended to Jeremy Corbyn under privy council terms before the prime minister updated the Commons on Wednesday. However, he was not offered the same level of briefing that Mr Cameron gave to Mr Miliband and Tim Livesey, his chief of staff, before a parliamentary vote on military action in Syria….
The data analytics firm that worked with Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign harvested millions of Facebook profiles of US voters, in the tech giant’s biggest ever data breach, and used them to build a powerful software program to predict and influence choices at the ballot box.
A whistleblower has revealed to the Observer how Cambridge Analytica – a company owned by the hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer, and headed at the time by Trump’s key adviser Steve Bannon – used personal information taken without authorisation in early 2014 to build a system that could profile individual US voters, in order to target them with personalised political advertisements.
Christopher Wylie, who worked with an academic at Cambridge University to obtain the data, told the Observer: “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles. And built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis that the entire company was built on.”
Documents seen by the Observer, and confirmed by a Facebook statement, show that by late 2015 the company had found out that information had been harvested on an unprecedented scale. However, at the time it failed to alert users and took only limited steps to recover and secure the private information of more than 50 million individuals.
…
The discovery of the unprecedented data harvesting, and the use to which it was put, raises urgent new questions about Facebook’s role in targeting voters in the US presidential election.
It comes only weeks after indictments of 13 Russians by special counsel Robert Mueller which stated they had used the platform to perpetrate “information warfare” against the US.
Cambridge Analytica and Facebook are one focus of an inquiry into data and politics by the British Information Commissioner’s Office. Separately, the Electoral Commission is also investigating what role Cambridge Analytica played in the EU referendum.
…
On Friday, four days after the Observer sought comment for this story, but more than two years after the data breach was first reported, Facebook announced that it was suspending Cambridge Analytica and Kogan from the platform, pending information over misuse of data.
Last month both Facebook and the CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Alexander Nix, told a parliamentary inquiry on fake news that the company did not have or use private Facebook data.
…
Wylie, a Canadian data analytics expert, who worked with Cambridge Analytica and Kogan to devise and implement the scheme, showed a dossier of evidence about the data misuse to the Observer which appears to raise questions about their testimony. He has passed it to the National Crime Agency’s cybercrime unit and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
It includes emails, invoices, contracts and bank transfers that reveal more than 50 million profiles – mostly belonging to registered US voters – were harvested from the site in the largest ever breach of Facebook data.
…
Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a data protection specialist, who spearheaded the investigative efforts into the tech giant, said: “Facebook has denied and denied and denied this. It has misled MPs and congressional investigators and it’s failed in its duties to respect the law.
“It has a legal obligation to inform regulators and individuals about this data breach, and it hasn’t. It’s failed time and time again to be open and transparent.”
…
Kogan, who has previously unreported links to a Russian university and took Russian grants for research, had a licence from Facebook to collect profile information, but it was for research purposes only.
So when he hoovered up information for the commercial venture, he was violating the company’s terms. Kogan maintains everything he did was legal, and says he had a “close working relationship” with Facebook, which had granted him permission for his apps.
The Observer has seen a contract dated 4 June 2014, which confirms SCL, an affiliate of Cambridge Analytica, entered into a commercial arrangement with GSR, entirely premised on harvesting and processing of Facebook data.
Cambridge Analytica spent nearly $1m on data collection, which yielded more than 50 million individual profiles that could be matched to electoral rolls. It then used the test results and Facebook data to build an algorithm that could analyse individual Facebook profiles and determine personality traits linked to voting behaviour.
…
“The ultimate product of the training set is creating a ‘gold standard’ of understanding personality from Facebook profile information,” the contract specifies. It promises to create a database of 2 million “matched” profiles, identifiable and tied to electoral registers, across 11 states, but with room to expand much further.
At the time, more than 50 million profiles represented around a third of active North American Facebook users, and nearly a quarter of potential US voters. Yet when asked by MPs if any of his firm’s data had come from GSR, Nix said: “We had a relationship with GSR. They did some research for us back in 2014. That research proved to be fruitless and so the answer is no.”…
More at the link. Cadwalladr just tweeted: “Yesterday @facebook threatened to sue us. Today we publish this.”
Liam Byrne replied to Cadwalladr: “Next week, we’ll table crucial amendments to #DataProtectionBill to bring order to this online chaos that’s now threatens free and fair elections.”
As the upstart voter-profiling company Cambridge Analytica prepared to wade into the 2014 American midterm elections, it had a problem.
The firm had secured a $15 million investment from Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, and wooed his political adviser, Stephen K. Bannon, with the promise of tools that could identify the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior. But it did not have the data to make its new products work.
So the firm harvested private information from the Facebook profiles of more than 50 million users without their permission, according to former Cambridge employees, associates and documents, making it one of the largest data leaks in the social network’s history. The breach allowed the company to exploit the private social media activity of a huge swath of the American electorate, developing techniques that underpinned its work on President Trump’s campaign in 2016.
An examination by The New York Times and The Observer of London reveals how Cambridge Analytica’s drive to bring to market a potentially powerful new weapon put the firm — and wealthy conservative investors seeking to reshape politics — under scrutiny from investigators and lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic.
Christopher Wylie, who helped found Cambridge and worked there until late 2014, said of its leaders: “Rules don’t matter for them. For them, this is a war, and it’s all fair.”
Continue reading the main story
“They want to fight a culture war in America,” he added. “Cambridge Analytica was supposed to be the arsenal of weapons to fight that culture war.”
…
…Interviews with a half-dozen former employees and contractors, and a review of the firm’s emails and documents, have revealed that Cambridge not only relied on the private Facebook data but still possesses most or all of the trove.
Cambridge paid to acquire the personal information through an outside researcher who, Facebook says, claimed to be collecting it for academic purposes.
During a week of inquiries from The Times, Facebook downplayed the scope of the leak and questioned whether any of the data still remained out of its control. But on Friday, the company posted a statement expressing alarm and promising to take action.
…
Alexander Nix, the chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, and other officials had repeatedly denied obtaining or using Facebook data, most recently during a parliamentary hearing last month. But in a statement to The Times, the company acknowledged that it had acquired the data, though it blamed Mr. Kogan for violating Facebook’s rules and said it had deleted the information as soon as it learned of the problem two years ago.
…
When the Psychometrics Centre [at Cambridge University] declined to work with the firm, Mr. Wylie found someone who would: Dr. Kogan, who was then a psychology professor at the university and knew of the techniques. Dr. Kogan built his own app and in June 2014 began harvesting data for Cambridge Analytica. The business covered the costs — more than $800,000 — and allowed him to keep a copy for his own research, according to company emails and financial records.
…
He ultimately provided over 50 million raw profiles to the firm, Mr. Wylie said, a number confirmed by a company email and a former colleague. Of those, roughly 30 million contained enough information, including places of residence, that the company could match users to other records and build psychographic profiles. Only about 270,000 users — those who participated in the survey — had consented to having their data harvested.
…
Just as Dr. Kogan’s efforts were getting underway, Mr. Mercer agreed to invest $15 million in a joint venture with SCL’s elections division. The partners devised a convoluted corporate structure, forming a new American company, owned almost entirely by Mr. Mercer, with a license to the psychographics platform developed by Mr. Wylie’s team, according to company documents. Mr. Bannon, who became a board member and investor, chose the name: Cambridge Analytica.*
The firm was effectively a shell. According to the documents and former employees, any contracts won by Cambridge, originally incorporated in Delaware, would be serviced by London-based SCL and overseen by Mr. Nix, a British citizen who held dual appointments at Cambridge Analytica and SCL. Most SCL employees and contractors were Canadian, like Mr. Wylie, or European.
But in July 2014, an American election lawyer advising the company, Laurence Levy, warned that the arrangement could violate laws limiting the involvement of foreign nationals in American elections.
…
While Mr. Nix has told lawmakers that the company does not have Facebook data, a former employee said that he had recently seen hundreds of gigabytes on Cambridge servers, and that the files were not encrypted.
Today, as Cambridge Analytica seeks to expand its business in the United States and overseas, Mr. Nix has mentioned some questionable practices. This January, in undercover footage filmed by Channel 4 News in Britain and viewed by The Times, he boasted of employing front companies and former spies on behalf of political clients around the world, and even suggested ways to entrap politicians in compromising situations.
All the scrutiny appears to have damaged Cambridge Analytica’s political business. No American campaigns or “super PACs” have yet reported paying the company for work in the 2018 midterms, and it is unclear whether Cambridge will be asked to join Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign.
In the meantime, Mr. Nix is seeking to take psychographics to the commercial advertising market….
Much more at the link.
* I always wondered where the name came from. I thought for a long time that it was a reference to Cambridge, MA. The suggested link to the university is itself kind of incriminating.
Brian Stelter asked Cadwalladr about the nature of the FB lawsuit threat. She replied: “Facebook instructed external lawyers and warned us we were making ‘false and defamatory’ allegations. Today they said it was not correct to call this a data breach. We are calling it a data breach.”
President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, told The Daily Beast on Saturday morning that he hopes Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will shut down the Mueller probe.
Reached for comment by email about the firing of former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, sent The Daily Beast the text of Trump’s most recent tweet on the subject, which applauded the firing. Then he wrote that Rosenstein should follow Sessions’ lead
“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd then wrote.
He told The Daily Beast he was speaking on behalf of the president, in his capacity as the president’s attorney.
Dowd also emailed the text below, which is an annotated version of a line from a well-known 20th century play:
“What’s that smell in this room[Bureau}? Didn’t you notice it, Brick [Jim]? Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room[Bureau}?… There ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the odor of mendacity[corruption]… You can smell it. It smells like death.” Tennessee Williams — ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’…
Matthew Miller on #175: “Here it is, the point all of the attacks on law enforcement by Trump, Nunes, Fox News and the rest have been inevitably building to. Red alert time.”
Betsy Woodruff just told Joy Reid that Dowd just emailed her to walk back his earlier statement – he was speaking in his personal capacity and not for Trump.
Mark Warner: “Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the Special Counsel. Now.”
Adam Schiff: “The President, through his lawyer, called on DOJ to end Mueller probe. Obstruction of justice is no less a threat to our democracy when done in the open than behind closed doors. Every representative should condemn this flagrant abuse of power or stop pretending devotion to duty.”
Maggie Haberman: “Trump was livid over subpoena story from @nytmike and me two days ago. Dowd statement about Mueller, pre-walk back, comes after that angry bout.”
Seriously. This is the shoddy practice and attitude of a company trying to claim that “Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do.”
Hj Hornbecksays
Paula Reid: JUST IN: Lordy, there are memos. McCabe kept contemporaneous memos of conversations with the President & events surrounding Comey firing.
David Carroll: “I have filed a legal claim in the UK against Cambridge Analytica/SCL under the Data Protection Act. Thank you to all those who have backed me in this effort….”
Carroll’s Twitter thread mentioned a “DR. SPECTRE” which I thought must be a nickname for Kogan or someone else. It’s this guy, who works with Kogan. He’s literally Dr. Aleksandr Spectre.
This from FB’s statement is especially galling (emphasis added):
Like all app developers, Kogan requested and gained access to information from people after they chose to download his app. His app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” offered a personality prediction, and billed itself on Facebook as “a research app used by psychologists.” Approximately 270,000 people downloaded the app. In so doing, they gave their consent for Kogan to access information such as the city they set on their profile, or content they had liked, as well as more limited information about friends who had their privacy settings set to allow it.
They’re doubling down:
Update on March 17, 2018, 9:50 AM: The claim that this is a data breach is completely false. Aleksandr Kogan requested and gained access to information from users who chose to sign up to his app, and everyone involved gave their consent. People knowingly provided their information, no systems were infiltrated, and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen or hacked.
No one in their right mind would set their account so that if their friend used an app it could then unbeknownst to them suck up a bunch of their personal information. A few hundred thousand people used the app, and it gathered data on tens of millions. That’s aside from this idiotic “it wasn’t a breach” spin, the two years of hiding this (including from government investigations in two countries), and the bogus legal threats to reporters revealing their malfeasance. They are in big fucking trouble.
Kathy Griffin: “I just found out that my Carnegie Hall show sold out in a day. I’m in shock. For most of the past year I was convinced that my career was over…I have felt moments of despair that I can’t describe in a tweet. Thank you from the bottom of my heart…I am so grateful.”
Carroll’s Twitter thread mentioned a “DR. SPECTRE” which I thought must be a nickname for Kogan or someone else. It’s this guy, who works with Kogan. He’s literally Dr. Aleksandr Spectre.
I was wrong! Someone else pointed out that this is another name Kogan uses, which you can see in the publications list (I thought it was strange for two similar-looking young guys named Aleksandr to be in the same department and working together). He uses this alias on his official university page, which is utterly bizarre.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT) has written to Chuck Grassley requesting an urgent hearing in the Judicial Committee on the politicization of the DOJ and Russia investigation. Here’s his press release:
“In the last few hours the President’s personal attorney has called for the Justice Department, without even an arguably legitimate basis, to prematurely shut down the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation. And the Attorney General, in a clear violation of his promised recusal under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee, fired a career civil servant days before he could retire, following months of the President’s relentless and outrageous prodding.
“During my four decades in the Senate, I have never before seen our nation’s career, apolitical law enforcement officials so personally and publicly maligned by politicians — indeed, by our President. And I have never been so concerned that the walls intended to protect the independence of our dedicated law enforcement professionals, including Special Counsel Mueller, are at risk of crumbling.
“A month ago I asked Chairman Grassley to hold a hearing on the escalating politicized attacks on the Justice Department and the FBI. We can all point to mistakes made by Justice Department officials over the course of high-profile investigations during the 2016 elections. Such mistakes rightly fall within the purview of the Judiciary Committee’s routine oversight functions.
“But there is nothing routine about what is happening to the Justice Department today. What we are seeing today is dangerous, and demands our immediate attention. I believe the Judiciary Committee will fail to fulfill its core oversight responsibility if it does nothing in this moment.”
(Link to the letter at the link. Next to his signature, Leahy wrote in pen “Chuck – it is serious.”)
SC @173, (and subsequent comments on the Cambridge Analytica theft of data), this is a fact that bothers me: Cambridge Analytica “still possesses most or all of the trove.”
So, who are they going to sell that trove to next? Will someone create an LLC to receive the data? Will it disappear now, only to reappear later?
How is it possible to fix this?
Unrelated: I made a mistake in comment 154. “22 years” should have been “21 years.”
NEW — Rep. Mark Pocan (WI-02) has extended an offer of employment to Andrew McCabe, “so that he can reach the needed length of service after President Trump fired him just days before he was set to retire.”
(At least one other appears to have done the same. I still don’t know if this would work, or if McCabe will accept.)
SC @168, One takeaway from McCabe’s statement is that, even if the OIG managed to find “a lack of candor” in some small way, the hasty firing of McCabe before his pension kicked in was a highly disproportionate reaction.
From Representative Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania:
Candidly, it looks like retribution and a bit vindictive. And I think it’s unfortunate. The man said he’s resigning, and on a Friday night before his 50th birthday, he’s fired to take away his pension? I don’t like the optics of this. I really don’t.
I have to tell you, it looks like the attorney general may have been browbeaten into this. He’s been publicly humiliated and shamed by the president on multiple occasions, and I just don’t think this bodes well.
We just had a special election on Tuesday. And all this continuing chaos and drama that we’re seeing with the Tillerson firing, the McCabe firing, Stormy Daniels, all this stuff, this is having an impact on Republicans down ballot. If people didn’t get the message on Tuesday, I hope they get it now.”
This is 5-alarm fire. We simply just can’t dismiss the election on Tuesday to local events… It’s about these larger issues of this toxic political environment we find ourselves in.
[Trump has] been battling with the FBI and certain elements of the intelligence community for some time. […]
I always had the sense that the rank and file of the FBI had pretty high regard for Mr. Comey. I don’t know what their relationship was with Mr. McCabe. I hadn’t heard terrible things. I guess the point I’m making is Comey and McCabe seem to have some respect within the FBI by the rank and file, so I’m not sure what the message is that the president is sending there.
I’ve never heard of an administration, a president attacking his own government. But that’s essentially what’s happening. And I think my colleagues ought to cease and desist from some of this rhetoric against our law enforcement officials who are very professional and thorough.
The text above is excerpted from an interview on CNN.
From Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut:
As a member of the House Intelligence Committee, I assure you, it has not concluded that there was no collusion. Not even close. We do see daily the damage you are doing to FBI and CIA. Putin thanks his lucky stars.
[…] McCabe’s firing shows how Trump has corroded the operations of the American government. There are real questions about McCabe’s performance at the FBI. But there are even deeper questions about Trump’s public vendetta against McCabe, and the role Sessions played in his termination.
McCabe is not innocent of wrongdoing. He made a questionable call (at best) about allowing a leak to the press during the 2016 campaign and then he appears to have lied about it, though he says it was an honest mistake. You can imagine a normal administration, and a normal process, weighing McCabe’s actions carefully and seriously.
But none of this is why Trump wanted McCabe gone, and “carefully and seriously” is not how the process was conducted. Trump wanted McCabe gone because of McCabe’s involvement in the Justice Department investigation of Russian meddling in the campaign. Trump thinks McCabe is a Comey-aligned Democrat who was biased against him. Trump believes his political appointees should protect him. Trump has been explicit in public about all of this. And he has spent months publicly slandering McCabe and pressuring Sessions to fire him.
Trump’s campaign had already worked. McCabe announced his retirement. The Trump administration fired him on Friday not to remove him from government, but to deny him the pension earned for over 20 years of government service. It was an act of punishment, not of personnel management.
This, then, is part of the cost of Trump’s daily venality: even when his administration makes a decision that might be justifiable on its own terms, the process by which that decision was made cannot be trusted, and may indeed be a scandal in its own right. […]
Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz found that, in 2016, McCabe inappropriately allowed two top officials to speak to reporters about his decision to open a case into the Clinton Foundation. That incident was under investigation as part of a broader look into how the FBI and Justice Department handled themselves during the 2016 presidential election.
But McCabe apparently lied about his authorization during an interview with the months-long probe. That led the FBI to recommend firing McCabe […]
McCabe disputes this interpretation […]
It is difficult to believe that the full weight of the presidency was focused on firing McCabe for improperly authorizing FBI officials to speak to the Wall Street Journal or even hiding it later. Indeed, few believe that.
The force of the White House was brought down on McCabe because of McCabe’s role overseeing the Russia probe, and because of McCabe’s ties to James Comey, who Trump loathes. Indeed, Trump hasn’t even sought to hide that fact: […]
[…] Wonkette here at work on the high holy drinking holiday of St. Patrick’s Day, to tell you about the mini-Friday Night Massacre Attorney General Jeff Sessions did for Donald Trump. Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was set to retire with full pension benefits, um, tomorrow, has been fired. And oh Jesus, the tinpot dicator who stole the White House is SO FUCKING EXCITED, because he’s an un-American puddle of cat vomit who thinks the Justice Department and the FBI are play toys for his personal vengeance, and he’s been gunning for McCabe for months now.
Sessions fired McCabe at 10 PM on a Friday night, because that’s normal. […]
This is clearly an attempt to impugn McCabe’s credibility as a witness in the Robert Mueller investigation. As Business Insider notes, all of the contemporaneous witnesses to Trump trying to obstruct James Comey […] by pressuring him to stop the Russia investigation, have now been fired or otherwise pushed aside. […]
The only funny thing here is that by caving and giving Donald Trump a scalp, Sessions MAY have shielded himself and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein from Trump’s ire a bit longer, thus protecting the Mueller investigation for now. Maybe.
On the other hand, Trump’s legal idiot John Dowd told the Daily Beast he hopes McCabe’s firing will give Rod Rosenstein the nudge he needs to shut down the FAKE NEWS DEMOCRAT HOAX Robert Mueller investigation. Don’t know why Dowd picked this morning to set the last shred of his credibility on fire, but whatever! […] Dowd is now trying to walk back his original email, which was written in PURPLE COMIC SANS […]
[…] There is no explanation about what lacking candor means, and Sessions does not go so far as to assert that McCabe lied under oath or at any time to internal investigators. […]
If they haven’t already, Mueller’s team should request that IG report first thing Monday morning to determine how this decision was made and if there was any motivation to further obstruct his investigation by anyone involved. He should also call as witnesses every single person involved in the investigation and the decision. […]
…Dr Kogan – who later changed his name to Dr Spectre, but has subsequently changed it back to Dr Kogan [!!! – SC] – is still a faculty member at Cambridge University, a senior research associate. But what his fellow academics didn’t know until Kogan revealed it in emails to the Observer (although Cambridge University says that Kogan told the head of the psychology department), is that he is also an associate professor at St Petersburg University. Further research revealed that he’s received grants from the Russian government to research “Stress, health and psychological wellbeing in social networks”. The opportunity came about on a trip to the city to visit friends and family, he said.
There are other dramatic documents in Wylie’s stash, including a pitch made by Cambridge Analytica to Lukoil, Russia’s second biggest oil producer. In an email dated 17 July 2014, about the US presidential primaries, Nix wrote to Wylie: “We have been asked to write a memo to Lukoil (the Russian oil and gas company) to explain to them how our services are going to apply to the petroleum business. Nix said that “they understand behavioural microtargeting in the context of elections” but that they were “failing to make the connection between voters and their consumers”. The work, he said, would be “shared with the CEO of the business”, a former Soviet oil minister and associate of Putin, Vagit Alekperov.
“It didn’t make any sense to me,” says Wylie. “I didn’t understand either the email or the pitch presentation we did. Why would a Russian oil company want to target information on American voters?”
Mueller’s investigation traces the first stages of the Russian operation to disrupt the 2016 US election back to 2014, when the Russian state made what appears to be its first concerted efforts to harness the power of America’s social media platforms, including Facebook. And it was in late summer of the same year that Cambridge Analytica presented the Russian oil company with an outline of its datasets, capabilities and methodology. The presentation had little to do with “consumers”. Instead, documents show it focused on election disruption techniques. The first slide illustrates how a “rumour campaign” spread fear in the 2007 Nigerian election – in which the company worked – by spreading the idea that the “election would be rigged”. The final slide, branded with Lukoil’s logo and that of SCL Group and SCL Elections, headlines its “deliverables”: “psychographic messaging”.
Lukoil is a private company, but its CEO, Alekperov, answers to Putin, and it’s been used as a vehicle of Russian influence in Europe and elsewhere – including in the Czech Republic, where in 2016 it was revealed that an adviser to the strongly pro-Russian Czech president was being paid by the company.
When I asked Bill Browder – an Anglo-American businessman who is leading a global campaign for a Magnitsky Act to enforce sanctions against Russian individuals – what he made of it, he said: “Everyone in Russia is subordinate to Putin. One should be highly suspicious of any Russian company pitching anything outside its normal business activities.”
Last month, Nix told MPs on the parliamentary committee investigating fake news: “We have never worked with a Russian organisation in Russia or any other company. We do not have any relationship with Russia or Russian individuals.”
There’s no evidence that Cambridge Analytica ever did any work for Lukoil. What these documents show, though, is that in 2014 one of Russia’s biggest companies was fully briefed on: Facebook, microtargeting, data, election disruption….
These two quotes from Wylie also stood out:
“The thing I think about all the time is, what if I’d taken a job at Deloitte instead? They offered me one. I just think if I’d taken literally any other job, Cambridge Analytica wouldn’t exist. You have no idea how much I brood on this.”
Is what Cambridge Analytica does akin to bullying?
“I think it’s worse than bullying,” Wylie says. “Because people don’t necessarily know it’s being done to them. At least bullying respects the agency of people because they know. So it’s worse, because if you do not respect the agency of people, anything that you’re doing after that point is not conducive to a democracy. And fundamentally, information warfare is not conducive to democracy.”
Rightwing eruptions of false stories after Conor Lamb won in Pennsylvania:
[…] The website Daily World Update said in a story circulating on social media that a judge identified as Marshawn Little of the 45th Federal Appeals Court of Westmoreland County cancelled the results because they were “tainted beyond reproach.”
But there is no such judge in Pennsylvania and no such court exists.
Another story on the same website, which identifies itself as a satire site to users who click the “About” section, claims “trucks full of illegals” cast votes in the election.
“There are no legitimate claims or complaints or evidence that any such events occurred. These claims should not be taken seriously,” said Wanda Murren, communications director for Pennsylvania’s Department of State. […]
“We are not aware of any official complaints lodged with the county election boards or district attorneys alleging voter fraud, nor have there been any filed through DOS. Any claims otherwise or without citing these entities could be from illegitimate sources,” Murren said.
With absentee ballots counted, Democrat Conor Lamb holds a 627-vote lead over Republican Rick Saccone out of more than 228,000 cast. Lamb has declared victory, while Saccone has not conceded. Election officials in the four counties in the Pittsburgh-area district had identified about 400 uncounted provisional, military and overseas ballots by Thursday. […]
This is part of The Associated Press’ ongoing effort to fact-check misinformation that is shared widely online, including work with Facebook to identify and reduce the circulation of false stories on the platform.
Renee Elliott: “That’s right, I did, I voted for Trump. I drove in the pouring rain to vote for Trump. I believed him when he came to Indianapolis and said ‘We’re not going to let Carrier leave.’”
Duane Oreskovic: “I thought, Mike Pence being from Indiana, he would have our back. Well, apparently that didn’t happen. I was wrong, we were all wrong.”
Frank Staples: “When they made the announcement that they were closing Carrier, people started realizing that Trump just lied his ass off about what he was actually doing. You know, it was PR, it was a photo op for him to say ‘hey, look what I did,’ and he really didn’t do shit. […]
“You can go get a job at McDonald’s, but how are you going to feed a family of four?”
…Kogan, a lecturer who worked with Cambridge Analytica on building up the database of US voters then at the heart of the company’s plans, said he had not had any connection to the Lukoil pitch.
But while he was helping turn Facebook profiles into a political tool he was also an associate professor at St Petersburg State University, taking Russian government grants to fund other research into social media. “Stress, health, and psychological wellbeing in social networks: cross-cultural investigation” was the title of one piece of research. Online posts showed Kogan lecturing in Russian. One talk was called: “New methods of communication as an effective political instrument”.
…
Apart from that, Kogan appears to have largely kept the work private. Colleagues said they had not heard about the post in St Petersburg. “I am very surprised by that. No one knew,” one academic who asked not to be named told the Observer. Russia is not mentioned in a 10-page CV Kogan posted on a university website in 2015. The CV lists undergraduate prizes and grants of a few thousand dollars and links to dozens of media interviews.
One Cambridge Analytica employee mentioned Kogan’s Russian work in an email to Nix in March 2014 discussing a pitch to a Caribbean nation for a security contract, including “criminal psychographic profiling via intercepts”.
“We may want to either loop in or find out a bit more about the interesting work Alex Kogan has been doing for the Russians and see how/if it applies,” the colleague wrote.
Kogan told the Observer: “Nothing I did on the Russian project was at all related to Cambridge Analytica in any way. No data or models.” His recollection was that the Russia project had started a year after his collaboration with Cambridge Analytica ended.
He said the St Petersburg position emerged by chance on a social visit. A native Russian speaker, Kogan was born in Moldova and brought up in Moscow until he was seven, when his family emigrated to the US, where he later obtained citizenship.
However, he stayed in touch with family friends in Russia and visited regularly. On one trip, he said, he “dropped an email” to the psychology department at St Petersburg.
“We met, had a nice chat, and decided let’s try to collaborate – give me more reason to visit there,” he told the Observer in an email.
This is extremely sketchy. His talk in Russia, “New methods of communication as an effective political instrument” (!), also doesn’t appear to be related to his ostensible areas of research at Cambridge.
The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime.
It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!
When the Russia question came up during a hearing at the British Parliament last month, Alexander Nix did not hesitate.
“We’ve never worked in Russia,” said Mr. Nix, head of a data consulting firm that advised the Trump campaign on targeting voters.
“As far as I’m aware, we’ve never worked for a Russian company,” Mr. Nix added. “We’ve never worked with a Russian organization in Russia or any other country, and we don’t have any relationship with Russia or Russian individuals.”
But Mr. Nix’s business did have some dealings with Russian interests, according to company documents and interviews.
…
The contacts [with Lukoil] took place as Cambridge Analytica was building a roster of Republican political clients in the United States — and harvesting the Facebook profiles of over 50 million users to develop tools it said could analyze voters’ behavior.
Cambridge Analytica also included extensive questions about Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in surveys it was carrying out in American focus groups in 2014. It is not clear what — or which client — prompted the line of questioning, which asked for views on topics ranging from Mr. Putin’s popularity to Russian expansionism.
On two promotional documents obtained by The New York Times, SCL said it did business in Russia. In both documents, the country is highlighted on world maps that specify the location of SCL clients, with one of the maps noting that the clients were for the firm’s elections division. In a statement, SCL said an employee had done “commercial work” about 25 years ago “for a private company in Russia.”
…
“I remember being super confused,” said Mr. Wylie, who took part in one of the Lukoil meetings.
“I kept asking Alexander, ‘Can you explain to me what they want?’” he said, referring to Mr. Nix. “I don’t understand why Lukoil wants to know about political targeting in America.”
“We’re sending them stuff about political targeting — they then come and ask more about political targeting,” Mr. Wylie said, adding that Lukoil “just didn’t seem to be interested” in how the techniques could be used commercially….
Mr. Trump acts like a nasty, small-minded despot, not the leader of a democracy more than two centuries old in which rule of law is a sturdy pillar. If there is doubt that the timing of Mr. McCabe’s dismissal was driven by political vengeance, Mr. Trump does everything he can to prove the worst with his own sordid words.
In nations without a strong democratic foundation, tyrants cling to power by belittling perceived enemies and insulting and co-opting other institutions, such as a free press, law enforcement and the military, coercing them into subservience.
Now the president has attempted to discredit, and lauded the punishment of, a potential witness against him, an affront to the integrity and independence of law enforcement. […]
In fact, the hardworking men and women of the FBI, the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and elsewhere in government come to work every day to uphold the values of a democratic system based on rule of law — a system that is distinguished by the simple principle that everyone is judged fairly, not by grudge or whim, and that no one is above the law, not even the president.
From Representative Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey:
McCabe’s dismissal in the dead of night is a disgrace to this country and our law enforcement community. Every day they vandalize our democracy and harm our institutions, and @HouseGOP does nothing.
Analyze McCabe firing on two levels: the substance and the timing. We don’t know enough about the substance yet. The timing appears cruel and a cave that compromised DOJ independence to please an increasingly erratic President who should’ve played no role here. This is dangerous.
“It’s like Spain in 1936.” Those are the words of Alexander Norton, a charismatic 31-year-old railway worker from east London, as Turkish forces besiege the Kurdish city of Afrin. Following in the tradition of Britain’s courageous International Brigades eight decades earlier, Norton has risked his life to fight Isis alongside Kurdish freedom fighters in Kurdish Syria. As you read this, a secular democracy that celebrates women’s rights is under attack, including by Turkish-aligned troops who have sung al-Qaida songs and threatened to cut off the heads of their “atheist” victims. If you’re wondering why Kurds and their supporters occupied King’s Cross and Manchester Piccadilly stations last weekend: here’s why. The Conservative government is arming to the teeth a nation ruled by an authoritarian despot, whose regime is linked to extreme jihadist groups, and which is now attempting to liquidate one of the only islands of democracy in a sea of Middle Eastern despotism: and yet virtually no one is speaking out about it.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians – many of whom are refugees who have fled the barbarity of Syria’s civil war – currently live under siege. Since Turkey launched a military offensive with the Orwellian codename Operation Olive Branch, around 230 civilians have died. But this isn’t just about the threat to civilian life. 26-year-old Elif Sarican – an activist with the Kurdish Women’s Movement – struggles to speak to me: her voice is hoarse through protesting. “It’s important to understand the attack of the Turkish army, with its allied jihadist forces, is not just against the Kurdish people,” she tells me. “These are two systems at war.”
Consider the nature of the two sides in this onslaught….
…
There is a challenge to the left, too. We rightly condemn the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people as they languish under the occupation of a western-backed state. Where is the equal outrage over the assault against democratic socialist Rojava? Our own government – complicit in this unforgivable bloodshed – must be pressured to cease arms sales to Turkey and to exert diplomatic pressure. The same goes for Saudi Arabia: after all, it is that repulsive regime that exports Wahhabi and Salafist extremism to the Middle East and beyond. Rojava, too, must be officially recognised, and have a seat at the table in any resolution of Syria’s protracted horror.
Alexander Norton is right. This is our Spain. Extremist authoritarians who despise democracy, women and freedom are at war with what should be an international beacon, a society that offers an example far beyond the despot-afflicted Middle East. Turkey knows that Rojava’s success will inspire not just its own Kurdish population to assert its rights: it sees a system which threatens its own degenerate authoritarian order. British Kurds are occupying train stations and roads because no one will listen to them about one of the gravest injustices on Earth. To abandon them now would be a shameful crime that would never be forgotten.
Andrew call me. I could use a good two-day report on the biggest crime families in Washington, D.C.
From Representative Seth Moulton:
Would be happy to consider this. The Sixth District of MA would benefit from the wisdom and talent of such an experienced public servant.
Moulton’s tweet was in reference to Andrea Mitchell’s tweet, already mentioned up-thread:
One suggestion from a McCabe supporter: if a friendly member of Congress hired him for a week he could possibly qualify for pension benefits by extending his service the extra days.
History was made for the Choctaw Nation on Monday March 12, 2018 when Prime Minister of Ireland Leo Varadkar arrived in Durant. Varadkar is on a week-long tour of the United States, a trip annually made by the Taoiseach, or Prime Minister, near St. Patrick’s Day.
“We consider it a great honor,” said Chief Batton about the visit. Chief Batton spoke about the Choctaw Nation representatives that attended the dedication of Kindred Spirits, an original sculpture unveiled in Cork, Ireland last summer. The artwork represented the bond between the Choctaw Nation and Ireland. “Our nations have shared a similar history of tragedy, perseverance and strength,” he said. “We have a kindred spirit.”
Taoiseach Varadkar noted that this was his first visit to the Choctaw Nation since taking office in 2017. His opening remarks to those present were spoken in Choctaw, which greatly pleased the largely Choctaw audience.
About their shared history, Taoiseach Varadkar said, it is “a sacred memory, a sacred bond.”
…
Roberts again took the podium and related the history of the Choctaw donation to Irish famine victims in the mid-1800s. In great and moving detail, Roberts explained the story of how the Choctaw people came to the aid of the Irish in 1847 during that country’s Great Famine of 1845-1852. When Choctaws became aware of the famine, they gathered $170 (the equivalent of $4,400 today), and through Quakers sent it across the Atlantic Ocean to help feed the starving nation of Ireland. Past words of Chief Batton were recalled from the sculpture dedication, “Your story is our story. We didn’t have any income. This was money pulled from our pockets. We had gone through the biggest tragedy that we could endure,” he said, referencing the Choctaws’ Trail of Tears that had recently taken place. “The bond between our nations has strengthened over the years. We are blessed to have the opportunity to share our cultures, and meet the generous people who have continued to honor a gift from the heart.”
…
Daycare-aged children and their teachers from the Choctaw Nation Child Development Center recited words and phrases they are learning in the Choctaw language. Both the Choctaw Nation and Ireland have their own languages and are striving to keep them alive.
In his closing remarks, Taoiseach Varadkar stunned and elated those present with the announcement that Ireland is starting a scholarship program for young Choctaws to study in Ireland.
“It will begin in the fall of 2019,” he said….
militantagnosticsays
SC @193 on Kogan/Spectre
He uses this alias on his official university page, which is utterly bizarre.
It is pretty much a tell that someone is up to no good. The local paper for the town where I work had an 2 page article about a scammy wedding planner who used multiple names. Someone who uses aliases doesn’t want a reputation from to catch up them.
“if you have an innocent client Mr. Dowd, act like it.”
GOWDY also emphasizes that House Intel Committee’s Russia report is *NOT* conclusive about collusion — only that they didn’t get evidence of collusion from witnesses they talked to — and didn’t talk to Flynn, Manafort, Papadopoulos, etc.
On CNN’s State of the Union, “@LindseyGrahamSC says Trump better not try to fire Mueller: ‘That would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we are a rule of law nation’.”
Turkish forces have captured the town center of Kurdish-controlled Afrin in northern Syria, Turkey said Sunday, capping a two-month military campaign that has divided Ankara and its international allies.
“The Free Syrian Army, with the support of the Turkish Armed Forces, have gained total control over the Afrin town center,” Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said early Sunday, morning, confirming the capture during a World War I commemoration in Canakkale.
The capture of Afrin followed a siege to the city that displaced more than 200,000 civilians.
…
The U.S. and others have warned that Turkey’s offensive on Afrin violated a current one-month cease-fire in Syria, brokered by the U.N. Security Council. U.S. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert last month told Turkey to “go and read this resolution, see what the world and the international community is saying about this.”
Turkey’s foreign ministry spokesman retorted by accusing the U.S. of “making statements that support terrorists.”
…
The swift capture of Afrin heightens the need for a diplomatic solution in Manbij, another Kurdish-controlled town further east that Mr. Erdogan has vowed to attack. Such a move risks bringing the Turkish army into direct conflict with U.S. Special Forces based in Manbij.
“We do not accept to be stalled. If the U.S. evacuates Manbij fully, then we would complete the job faster and easier,” Mr. Erdogan said at a party congress on Friday. “ We do not ask for any favors from them, just do not stand in our way.”
Until recently, Afrin was regarded as a haven from Syria’s war, now in its eighth year. But when Turkey launched its offensive against the YPG in January, foreign forces stood aside.
Russia, which controls the airspace over Afrin, allowed access to Turkish warplanes. The U.S., Turkey’s NATO-ally and backer of the YPG, protested the offensive but didn’t intervene. The YPG asked the Syrian regime for help, but that assistance proved short-lived.
At least 250 civilians have been killed in the Turkish offensive in Afrin, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights….
The head of the parliamentary committee investigating fake news has accused Cambridge Analytica and Facebook of misleading MPs in testimony, after the Observer revealed details of a vast data breach affecting tens of millions of people.
After a whistleblower detailed the harvesting of more than 50 million Facebook profiles for Cambridge Analytica, Damian Collins, the chair of the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee, said he would be calling on the Facebook boss, Mark Zuckerberg, to testify before the committee.
He said the company appeared to have previously sent executives able to avoid difficult questions who had “claimed not to know the answers”.
Collins also said he would be recalling the Cambridge Analytica CEO, Alexander Nix, to give further testimony. “Nix denied to the committee last month that his company had received any data from [his firm] GSR,” he said. “We will be contacting Alexander Nix next week asking him to explain his comments.”
…
“We need to hear from people who can speak about Facebook from a position of authority that requires them to know the truth,” Collins said. “Someone has to take responsibility for this. It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to stop hiding behind his Facebook page.”
…
Collins attacked Facebook for appearing to have been “deliberately avoiding answering straight questions” in testimony to the committee.
“It is now clear that data has been taken from Facebook users without their consent, and was then processed by a third party and used to support their campaigns,” Collins said. “Facebook knew about this, and the involvement of Cambridge Analytica with it.”…
Nicolle Wallace: “To all my republican friends who think they can sit out the Trump era and hope for great SCOTUS picks, your time is up. Trump is a disgrace who is debasing the office. You whisper it off the record and you email me your disgust. Time to stand up+speak out.”
Sen. Klobuchar: “Facebook breach: This is a major breach that must be investigated. It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves. I’ve called for more transparency & accountability for online political ads. They say ‘trust us’. Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.”
Cambridge Analytica, the data firm alleged to have used the personal information of millions of Facebook users without their knowledge in its work for Donald Trump’s election campaign, is trying to stop the broadcast of an undercover Channel 4 News report in which its chief executive talks unguardedly about its practices.
Channel 4 reporters posed as prospective clients and had a series of meetings with Cambridge Analytica that they secretly filmed — including at least one with Alexander Nix, its chief executive. Channel 4 declined to comment.
Mr Nix referred the FT to Cambridge Analytica’s spokesperson when asked if he was aware of the Channel 4 report, which is due to air this week, according to people briefed on the situation. Cambridge Analytica’s spokesman declined to comment on the undercover Channel 4 report….
Maybe CBS could air it in the US, too, right after the Stormy Daniels interview.
“CONAWAY says House Intel Committee did NOT conclude there was no collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. “What we said is that we found no evidence of it. That’s a different statement.”
He notes they didn’t talk to several central witnesses.”
Gowdy admits Americans should not trust House Intel Comm review of Russia collusion—should trust Mueller instead:
House Commtee is ‘what you should NOT have confidence in. Have confidence in the Exec Branch investigations and if Mueller finds stuff, more power to him’.”
“Trey Gowdy: ‘Executive Branch investigations have more credibility, they have more tools and that’s what I think my fellow citizens ought to be waiting for and have confidence in. Not congressional investigations that are run by guys running for the Senate in California…’
Gowdy is admitting all this after Chris Wallace pressed him on the fact that the House Intelligence Committee did not interview Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos (and Gowdy adds: we didn’t interview Manafort either).”
The Russian ex-spy who along with his daughter was poisoned by a nerve agent in the U.K. may have been exposed to the neurotoxin through his car’s ventilation system, sources told ABC News.
…
U.K. officials now have a clearer picture of just how the attack was conducted, sources said. They believe the toxin was used in a dust-like powdered form and that it circulated through the vents of Skripal’s BMW.
Three intelligence officials told ABC News that the Russian military origin and the nature of the substance, a “dusty” organophosphate neurotoxin, are clear to them.
“It is a Cold War substance, something they claimed never to have,” one senior intelligence official said of Russia to ABC News.
The intelligence officials told ABC News up to 38 individuals in Salisbury have been identified as having been affected by the nerve agent but the full impact is still being assessed and more victims sickened by the agent are expected to be identified
…
“It’s seen here as an attempted murder and premeditated,” rather than an attempt just to sicken Skripal with a non-lethal toxin or scare other Russian ex-spies, an intelligence official told ABC News….
The U.K. government said Sunday it has evidence that Russia has spent the last decade secretly developing nerve agents to use in assassinations, in what it said was a violation of international treaties banning chemical weapons.
“We have evidence that Russia has been investigating delivery of nerve agents and has been creating and stockpiling Novichok,” Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told the British Broadcasting Corp., referring to the poison British authorities say was used in the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal, a Russian colonel who spied for the British and was traded in a spy swap in 2010.
His statement marks the latest escalation in a diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow….
…
Investigators from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons are scheduled to arrive in the U.K. Monday, the Foreign Office said. London says it will turn over samples of the nerve agent used in Mr. Skripal’s poisoning so they can be independently verified, a process expected to take around two weeks.
The firing of Andrew McCabe shows President Trump has the upper hand in key battles with his opponents. For notwithstanding his ineptitude, lack of presidential temperament, chaotic White House and deep unpopularity, Trump is continuing to strengthen his grip on power.
The McCabe case illustrates the fundamental asymmetry between Trump and his critics….
…First, until the details of McCabe’s case are public, many Trump critics have been restrained in their reaction to McCabe’s firing. They want to reserve judgment until the facts are in; they want to assess McCabe’s actual culpability before taking up his case.
But Trump is not similarly constrained in smearing McCabe and regaling in his ouster. Trump called McCabe’s firing — executed by an attorney general under pressure to appease his boss — “a great day” and a reflection of the “lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI.” This was at least his sixth tweet about McCabe in recent months, leaving no doubt about Trump’s grudge against the career FBI agent whom Trump has maligned with a long list of false accusations.
…
And what if McCabe did do something wrong in authorizing FBI officials to talk to a reporter, or while answering questions from investigators looking into the matter? Here is Trump’s second advantage: the fact that almost every person who stands up to Trump will, themselves, be imperfect, be vulnerable to investigation, have made mistakes — that is to say, human.
…
In these instances, we need to ask not whether an individual did something wrong; the question is whether there is any reason to believe that is why Trump took action. In McCabe’s case, the answer is obvious.
From Trump’s own words, it is clear that he had McCabe fired not for anything he did wrong, but for what he did right: His refusal to pledge political loyalty to Trump, his determination that the investigation of Trump and his campaign continue without compromise, and his testimony to the House Intelligence Committee corroborating Comey’s damning account of Trump’s obstruction.
McCabe’s firing serves Trump’s purposes, whether or not McCabe did anything wrong. And every FBI agent investigating matters that Trump finds uncomfortable, every intelligence officer reporting on Russian efforts to corrupt our democracy, every career civil servant doing his or her duty in the face of political pressure has been sent a chilling message: Cross the president at your peril. He will single you out, he will harass you publicly, he will find a way to end your career. He may even deny you a pension you have spent decades earning through selfless public service.
This, then, is the challenge that confronts Trump’s opponents dedicated to protecting the rule of law from his political power. Standing up to Trump may indeed involve standing unequivocally with imperfect people, people who may have done something wrong — to stop the president from perpetrating an even bigger wrong, with an even greater cost to our system.
I stand with Andrew McCabe.
And it’s important to note that both Comey and McCabe are being disingenuously attacked by Republicans for actions that were adverse to Hillary Clinton, likely prompted by extraordinary and unprecedented pressure and lies from the Right and from the Russian influence campaign which pushed them to want to defend their reputations and impartiality.*
The FBI inspector general’s report reviewing allegations of misconduct by Comey in connection with the email probe is also expected to come out this spring. “It’s hard to believe it won’t be critical of how he handled things,” said Miller. “There is speculation that he moved up the publication date to get ahead of the report. In the book he will come off as the saint he thinks he is.”
McCabe’s attorney on Trump’s pre-golf tweets this morning: “We will not be responding to each childish, defamatory, disgusting & false tweet by the President. The whole truth will come out in due course. But the tweets confirm that he has corrupted the entire process that led to Mr. McCabe’s termination and has rendered it illegitimate.
SC @235, so scary! And right now, we don’t have the USA fully onboard, fully engaged with allies in order to address the problem. Circumstances forced Trump and his toadies to put out a few “we’re with you” statements, but as with most things related to Russia, the follow-through is paltry to non-existent.
SC @236, several good points are made in that article. Stand with McCabe, even though he is not a perfect human being. Trump is the destroyer of the rule of law and of democracy. Stand against Trump.
SC @237, McCabe’s lawyer sounds like a reasonable person. Meanwhile, Trump is digging his hole deeper by attacking McCabe and the FBI (and Comey) via Twitter.
Update to #227 – Channel 4 News: “Our full undercover expose of @CamAnalytica will be broadcast tomorrow at 7pm on @Channel4News and will be online @ http://www.channel4.com/news.”
That will be 3 PM ET tomorrow (Monday) in the US. Will we be able to watch it online??? I hope so!
SC @234, I see that at least the Brits are willing to call back witnesses who lie or mislead people during their testimony (recalling Nix for example). Devin Nunes and his cohorts in the US House of Representatives fell far short of that basic measure of competence and good intent.
SC @232, the Democrats were right to not let that instance of “whataboutism” from Cambridge Analytica go unchallenged.
SC @228, it sounds like Conaway is trying to salvage a tiny sliver of his integrity with that walk-back about no-collusion statements that other Republicans, and Trump, are spewing out at a high rate. I think it is too late for Conaway to try to make himself look good, since the entire report the House Representatives released is deceitful, duplicitous.
Turkey’s foreign ministry spokesman retorted by accusing the U.S. of “making statements that support terrorists.”
[headdesk] That’s always Turkey’s excuse when they go after the Kurds: they lump Kurdish fighters in with “terrorists.” This time they took the extra step to insinuate that the U.S. is supporting terrorists.
Turkey, Russia, and Bashar al-Assad are winning in Syria. This is only going to get worse.
As for the plans to push the U.S. out of Syria entirely, the situation in Manbij shows us how it will be done:
“We do not accept to be stalled. If the U.S. evacuates Manbij fully, then we would complete the job faster and easier,” Mr. Erdogan said at a party congress on Friday. “ We do not ask for any favors from them, just do not stand in our way.”
I cannot imagine how U.S. special forces in Manbij must be feeling. I can’t see how this situation can be handled without just handing the city over to Turkey.
Garry Kasparov: “Alternative headline for CNN and everyone else: ‘Russian election charade distracts western press while Putin’s dictatorship continues into its 19th year’.”
[headdesk] That’s always Turkey’s excuse when they go after the Kurds: they lump Kurdish fighters in with “terrorists.” This time they took the extra step to insinuate that the U.S. is supporting terrorists.
Another quote from that article is also astonishing:
“We do not accept to be stalled. If the U.S. evacuates Manbij fully, then we would complete the job faster and easier,” Mr. Erdogan said at a party congress on Friday. “ We do not ask for any favors from them, just do not stand in our way.”
The US military doesn’t even really need Incirlik. Tell the evil Turkish regime to go fuck themselves.
Wow, watch Comey lie under oath to Senator G when asked “have you ever been an anonymous source…or known someone else to be an anonymous source…?” He said strongly “never, no.” He lied as shown clearly on @foxandfriends.
Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?
Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!
[…] while it is true some of Mueller’s team has made political contributions to Democrats in the past, it is misleading to say the team consists of “13 hardened Democrats.” As the Washington Post pointed out, Mueller is prohibited by federal regulations from making politically-motivated hiring decisions. And Mueller himself is a Republican.
[…] Comey was not asked by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) whether he had known someone else to be an anonymous source. Grassley actually asked whether Comey had “ever been an anonymous source” in reports relating to the investigations of Trump or Hillary Clinton, and whether Comey had “ever authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source” regarding the same investigations. Comey answered in the negative to both questions. […]
McCabe maintained that he was authorized to share information with the media through his staff; that “others, including [then-FBI Director James Comey], were aware of the interaction with the reporter;” and that he answered the inspector general’s questions “truthfully and as accurately as I could amidst the chaos that surrounded me.”
Following the firing, various outlets reported that McCabe had kept written memos detailing his interactions with Trump, and that he had been in touch with special counsel Robert Mueller’s office.
Kushner Companies filed false documents with New York City. The companies did so in an attempt to get away with evicting tenants that the law prohibited them from evicting.
When the Kushner Cos. bought three apartment buildings in a gentrifying neighborhood of Queens in 2015, most of the tenants were protected by special rules that prevent developers from pushing them out, raising rents and turning a tidy profit.
But that’s exactly what the company then run by Jared Kushner did, and with remarkable speed. Two years later, it sold all three buildings for $60 million, nearly 50 percent more than it paid.
Now a clue has emerged as to how President Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s firm was able to move so fast: The Kushner Cos. routinely filed false paperwork with the city declaring it had zero rent-regulated tenants in dozens of buildings it owned across the city when, in fact, it had hundreds. […]
“It’s bare-faced greed,” said Aaron Carr, founder of Housing Rights Initiative, a tenants’ rights watchdog that compiled the work permit application documents and shared them with The Associated Press. “The fact that the company was falsifying all these applications with the government shows a sordid attempt to avert accountability and get a rapid return on its investment.” […]
[snipped Kushner Cos. ridiculous denials]
[…] In all, Housing Rights Initiative found the Kushner Cos. filed at least 80 false applications for construction permits in 34 buildings across New York City from 2013 to 2016, all of them indicating there were no rent-regulated tenants. Instead, tax documents show there were more than 300 rent-regulated units. Nearly all the permit applications were signed by a Kushner employee, including sometimes the chief operating officer.
Had the Kushner Cos. disclosed those rent-regulated tenants, it could have triggered stricter oversight of construction crews by the city, including possibly unscheduled “sweeps” on site by inspectors to keep the company from harassing tenants and getting them to leave.
Instead, current and former tenants of the Queens buildings told the AP that they were subjected to extensive construction, with banging, drilling, dust and leaking water that they believe were part of targeted harassment to get them to leave and clear the way for higher-paying renters. […]
SC @243, media outlets could, at the very least, put “election” in scare quotes when discussing Putin’s “win.”
In other news, there are indications that Jeff Sessions lied to Congress:
[…] Sessions testified before Congress in November 2017 that he “pushed back” against the proposal made by former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting. Then a senator from Alabama, Sessions chaired the meeting as head of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team. […]
NADLER: There are reports that you shut George down, unquote, when he proposed that meeting with Putin. Is this correct, yes or no?
SESSIONS: Yes. I pushed back. I’ll just say it that way, because it was —
NADLER: Your answer is yes.
SESSIONS: Yes.
Three people who attended the March campaign meeting told Reuters they gave their version of events to FBI agents or congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although the accounts they provided to Reuters differed in certain respects, all three, who declined to be identified, said Sessions had expressed no objections to Papadopoulos’ idea. […]
Reuters link. More information is available at the link.
Looks like Comey is going to make some money off his literary efforts:
Former FBI Director James Comey’s unreleased book has landed at the No. 1 spot on the Amazon best-sellers list just one day after he told President Trump that “the American people will hear my story very soon.”
Comey’s book, “A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies, and Leadership,” rocketed up the list over the weekend, after starting at No. 15 on Saturday.
The book is scheduled to be released on April 17. […]
I think the would-be dictator will not be able to censor publication, and won’t understand why he can’t stop publication, as he has no understanding of the Constitution.
What will ensue, won’t be pretty.
Pierce R. Butlersays
Lynna … @ # 248: … media outlets could, at the very least, put “election” in scare quotes when discussing Putin’s “win.”
Careful, now: if they did that, where else would they have to do it too?
I remember when this was first discussed during the election in 2016, when it was widely noted that Trump’s wish to do it clearly signaled an authoritarian bent and that putting it in action would be ridiculously improper. Any such agreements, if they exist, are unenforceable and insane. And the story suggests that people were pressured to sign them by Priebus and…McGahn. As Norm Eisen argues:
White House lawyers who knowingly participated in a scheme to illegally coerce unrepresented non lawyer employees & deprive them of First Amendment and other rights could be subject to bar discipline for violating ethics rules —and maybe even lose their licenses.
“New: @ACLU responds to Trump requiring WH staff to sign nondisclosures. ‘Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements. These so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable’, per Ben Wizner, ACLU’s speech and privacy director.”
Austin’s police chief says the two men injured in the most recent bombing in Austin were riding or pushing bicycles when the explosives detonated.
Police Chief Brian Manley told ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Monday that Sunday night’s explosion was detonated by a tripwire and showed “a different level of skill.” The attack differed from three earlier blasts in Austin this month, which were caused by package bombs left on people’s doorsteps.
The men injured in Sunday’s blast were white, unlike the victims of the first three bombings, who were black or Hispanic.
Authorities have cordoned off the neighborhood where the bomb went off Sunday night and have warned residents to remain indoors while officers check for anything suspicious….
The Trump administration’s efforts to fire civil servants viewed as disloyal are not exactly a secret, but now we are seeing more proof of this illegal effort:
A trove of e-mails obtained by House Democrats reveal efforts by top State Department officials — working hand in hand with the White House, outside conservatives and right-wing media — to sideline and demote career civil servants who are seen as disloyal to President Trump.
The report on the emails set off alarm bells across Washington, D.C. and prompted Democrats on the House Oversight Committee to demand that the State Department hand over records of internal communications on the issue. […] independent watchdog groups tracking the issue tell TPM the problem is not confined to the State Department, citing similar acts of retaliation against career staffers throughout the government.
“I think we’re seeing a pattern across a number of agencies,” Nick Schwellenbach, the Director of Investigations at the Project On Government Oversight, told TPM. “Top political leadership is working to root out people they view as insufficiently loyal to Trump’s agenda. It’s extremely troubling, because federal government employees’ loyalty should be to the Constitution, not to the political masters of the moment.”
Under federal laws dating back to the late 1800s, government workers can only be hired or fired based on their merit and work performance. It’s illegal to make those decisions based on political affiliations or patronage. […]
“Over the past year, we have heard many reports of political attacks on career employees at the State Department, but we had not seen evidence of how extensive, blunt, and inappropriate these attacks were until now,” said Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Eliot Engel (D-NY), the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs committees. […]
Yesterday, VP Mike Pence visited Savannah’s St. Patrick’s Day parade for 1 hour, costing an absurd amount to taxpayers & lost sales to businesses who count on that day every year. Protestors made sure there were rainbows in every photo op with the bigot.
It started with helping a friend pitch the Pentagon on a smartphone chip and moved on to more ambitious plans to sell nuclear reactor security in the Middle East and then to high-priced lobbying for the Turkish government.
Michael Flynn, who joined Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as a top military adviser, never believed the candidate would win and often treated the election like a business opportunity, associates say. Now, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller bears down on Trump, Flynn is a key cooperating witness.
A three-month Bloomberg investigation has found that Flynn, who was fired for having lied to the FBI and the vice president about his contacts with Russians, had a slew of other problematic entanglements. Previously unreported documents, including Pentagon contracts, emails and internal company papers, point to overlapping business conflicts around the world.
Self-dealing is, in some ways, at the core of the Mueller inquiry, which is looking at money laundering, contact with foreign (especially Russian) officials and a blending of personal profit with public policy. During the campaign, the transition and his few weeks as national security adviser, Flynn was in Trump’s inner circle. While it remains unclear what he’s providing Mueller, his history of mingling business with government could point investigators to look for similar overlaps among other Trump insiders.
…
Flynn’s troubles trace back to a previously unreported million-dollar contract for computer chips forged with a friend, Bijan Kian, a suave, Iranian-born businessman….
…
After Trump’s election victory, Flynn and Kian, both of whom served on the transition team’s intelligence committee, worked on highly sensitive matters without disclosing that they had been paid to represent Turkey’s government. Flynn also stopped a U.S. military plan to attack Islamic State in an offensive that would have armed the Kurds, Erdogan’s avowed enemy, according to a Flynn confidant who said the decision was aimed at assessing previous policy.
Once Trump was sworn in, Flynn used his position as national security adviser to promote the Middle East nuclear deal that he and Kian had also pursued as a business opportunity for GreenZone….
…
A year after the Saudi trip, in September 2016—the height of the presidential campaign—Kian met with half a dozen staffers from the House Homeland Security Committee to promote GreenZone’s secure communications products, saying their end-to-end encryption could protect communications by special forces in the battlefield. At the end of the meeting, Kian suggested a follow-up meeting for a live demonstration.
At that gathering, several weeks later at Flynn Intel’s offices in Alexandria, Virginia, Kian was accompanied by Justin Freeh, a GreenZone board member and son of former FBI Director Louis Freeh. After 20 minutes of demonstrating the technology, Kian abruptly ushered in another group with an entirely separate and unexpected agenda. They talked about Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish cleric living legally in Pennsylvania and accused by Turkish President Erdogan of leading a coup attempt. The presenters called Gulen a terrorist and urged hearings about the danger he posed in hopes of getting him extradited. Kian was told the committee couldn’t help. Freeh didn’t respond to requests for comment.
That same month, Flynn and Kian met with Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from California who is supportive of Russia, to discuss the construction of up to 40 nuclear power plants across the Mideast in cooperation with Russia, a plan promoted by a consortium that included former U.S. military men hoping to work with Flynn and GreenZone. Mueller’s office has inquired about that meeting, according to lawyers involved in the case.
…
Another controversial and previously unreported proposal Flynn and Kian promoted was to hire private security contractors to collect information around the globe, then sidestep the CIA and provide the intelligence directly to the national security adviser, according to people who worked with them on the transition. Flynn couldn’t hold his administration job long enough to shepherd those plans into action….
Downing Street expressed its concern for the Facebook data breach that affected tens of millions of people involving the analytics company that worked with Donald Trump’s campaign team.
No 10 weighed in on the row as almost $20bn (£14bn) was wiped off the social network company’s market cap in the first few minutes of trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange, where Facebook opened down more than 3%. By midday, the company’s losses had multiplied to more than $40bn, making the day its worst in more than five years.
Theresa May’s spokesman said she backed an investigation by the information commissioner, which was prompted by a whistleblower who told the Observer how Cambridge Analytica harvested millions of Facebook profiles to influence voters through “psychographic” targeting.
The European parliament president, Antonio Tajani, also said on Monday that the institution would “investigate fully”. Tajani urged the social media giant to take more responsibility, saying on Twitter that “allegations of misuse of Facebook user data is an unacceptable violation of our citizens’ privacy rights”.
In the US, a state attorney general has called for investigations,* greater accountability and regulation, while in the UK the head of the parliamentary committee investigating fake news accused Cambridge Analytica and Facebook of misleading MPs, with the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport warning of an end to the “wild west” of technology firms….
* She’s actually opened an investigation – see #187 above.
Cable news has to stop using chyrons like “Trump heading to New Hampshire to unveil tougher opioid plan.” Tougher than what? What’s tough about it? Who wanted “tough”? Is it tough on drug companies? Trump has done nothing about this problem, and in fact has backed and enacted policies that compound it and increase suffering and oppression. The people he’s put in place to lead efforts to deal with it give new meaning to the phrase “adding insult to injury.”
“On Telegram, RT editor Simonyan writes that Putin ‘used to simply be our president and he could be changed. But now he is our leader [vozhd’]. And we will not allow him to be changed’.”
Re #265: “To be fair (?), her rant is a lot weirder than this, quasi-implies she wishes Putin weren’t the vozhd, and says the West is to blame for it all. Because we ‘made them choose between liberalism and patriotism’…somehow.”
…On paper, Putin’s victory gave him a new six-year term as president. But some of his most visible allies quickly signaled they saw it as a mandate for something greater than that: leader of the Russian people, rising above politics at a time when the country’s very existence is threatened by an aggressive West.
Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of pro-Kremlin network RT, wrote that Putin had turned from president to “our leader,” or vozhd — a word with medieval roots that Soviets once used for Stalin. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a nationalist presidential candidate who supports Putin, predicted on national television that “these elections were the last ones.” And a parade of pro-Kremlin commentators, politicians, and officials claimed that Putin’s victory represented nothing less than the unity and determination of a people under siege.
…
Russia’s constitution would bar Putin from running again in 2024. But for months, there’s been growing speculation in Moscow that Putin will either change the constitution to allow him to run yet again — or create a new office that would turn him into a supreme national leader, like the Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
…
Zhirinovsky, a staple of Russian politics since he first ran for president in 1991, told the Interfax news agency after the election that he expected Putin to follow the lead of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who recently abolished presidential term limits in his country. On a state television talk show Sunday evening, Zhirinovsky said that because voters seem uninterested in electing a different leader, “we should get rid of elections.”
“These elections were the last ones, you should understand that,” he said. “There will be a state council governed by the president.”
The growing talk of a Putin lifetime presidency is being accompanied by increasingly dire rhetoric about Russia’s confrontation with the West. Putin’s allies are presenting his victory — which was accompanied by footage of ballot-stuffing and many reports of people ordered to vote by their employers — as a response to Western aggression.
…
One of the most striking responses, however, came from RT editor Simonyan, who deployed a term for Putin that has been rarely heard here despite his years-long dominance of Russian politics. In referring to him as Russia’s vozhd, she was resurrecting a word for “leader” that was last commonly used in the country to refer to Stalin. In the days of serfdom, it was used in the sense of “master.”
“You have united us around your enemy,” Simonyan wrote, referring to Putin. “He used to simply be our president and he could be changed. But now he is our leader. And we will not allow him to be changed.”…
What’s a little “maybe it was not Russians but Jews who happen to have Russian citizenship who interfered in the US elections” between corrupt autocratic friends?
From Adam Schiff, in reference to the Republican-led House Intelligence “investigation” being prematurely ended, and a bogus report being issued:
They announced their conclusions, which included among other things that the Russians had not intervened in the election to help Donald Trump. Now, that’s at odds with what the intelligence community has found. It’s at odds with what our committee has found. It’s at odds with what the Senate committee has found. It’s at odds with what Bob Mueller has found. It was a political statement, not a finding. When they were forced to defend it … they couldn’t.
Had Mr. Conaway and I been really given the latitude to run the investigation, it would have been a very different investigation. Chairman Nunes, even when he said he was stepping aside after the midnight run, never did, and continued to make all the key decisions—which witnesses would come in; when they would come; and what open hearings we would have; what open hearings we wouldn’t have; what subpoenas would go out; what subpoenas wouldn’t go out—all of these sideshow investigations of FISA abuse and Uranium One and all that—those were all decisions made by Chairman Nunes, not by Mike Conaway.
I think one of the really sad realizations over the last year is not what kind of a president Donald Trump turns out to be—I think it was all too predictable—but rather, how many members of Congress would be unwilling to stand up to him, and more than that, would be completely willing to carry water for him. That is a very sad realization. I did not expect that. I thought there would be more Jeff Flakes, more John McCains, more Bob Corkers—people who would defend our system of checks and balances, would speak out for decency, who would defend the First Amendment.
Update on the NRA in Florida: the organization is taking revenge:
[…] “Speaker of the House Richard Corcoran (R) is adding insult to injury by calling the betrayal of law-abiding firearms owners ‘one of the greatest Second Amendment victories we’ve ever had,’” NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer said in a legislative update sent to members and posted on the website of the NRA’s lobbying arm.
“One of the greatest Second Amendment victories we’ve ever had,” she wrote again for emphasis, “NOT !!!!!!”
[…] she and the NRA do not believe that the new three-day waiting period and 21-year age limit for long gun purchases is justified. […]
Now the political consequences for Corcoran — anticipated by the speaker, who had an A rating with the NRA — are coming to bear. And political insiders say Hammer might just be warming up with Corcoran as she considers whether and when to target the 57 Florida House Republicans and 18 Florida Senate Republicans who voted for the bill.
“Richard’s the first casualty. He probably won’t be the last,” said one Republican in the Legislature who was so fearful of Hammer that the member didn’t want any identifying information printed about his or her gender or which chamber he or she served in. “For Richard, this is deadly in a Republican primary.” […]
[…] Trump is adding a lawyer to his legal team who has endorsed the idea that the Justice Department framed him […]
Trump plans to hire longtime Washington lawyer Joseph diGenova, the Times wrote, citing three people told of the decision. […]
The president is increasingly signaling he intends to go in a different direction with his legal strategy, and this weekend began attacking by name special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump’s lawyers had previously advised him not to attack Mueller. […]
“There was a brazen plot to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame Donald Trump with a falsely created crime,” he [diGenova] said on Fox News in January.
“Make no mistake about it: A group of FBI and DOJ people were trying to frame Donald Trump of a falsely created crime,” said diGenova, who was previously a Republican-appointed United States attorney for the District of Columbia.
Over the weekend, Trump tweeted that the Mueller probe should “never have been started.” […]
[…] McCabe, according to someone close to him, never spoke with Attorney General Jeff Sessions, FBI Director Christopher Wray, or Trump about his termination. Instead, he found out after someone close to him read Sessions’s firing statement to him over the phone. The statement had already appeared on TV by that point; McCabe received an email about his ouster mere minutes before Sessions made the announcement but didn’t see it in time. […]
Why didn’t Jeff Sessions or Christopher Wray call McCabe? Weird.
The ultimate answer to why this is all taking place:
[…] Wright [Andy Wright, a professor at Savannah Law School], the current law professor and former White House lawyer, told Vox he’s worried about what’s yet to come for one startling reason: “The president of the United States is unhinged.”
From Wonkette’s coverage of the part Cambridge Analytica played in the Trump campaign:
Cambridge Analytica is the weird data firm based in the UK, funded liberally by the uber-wingnut mega-gazillionaire Mercer family, which worked with the Trump campaign to use Facebook to convince Nanas and little brothers all across America that Hillary Clinton was the devil incarnate. Steve Bannon was on its board!
CA also notably reached out to Russian intelligence front WikiLeaks during the campaign, just to offer some help in filing and categorizing all the dirty Russian-hacked Hillary Clinton emails. We have always, since the very beginning, suspected that CA was an important player in the hacked email operation, perhaps maybe using stolen voter data from Russia’s Alfa Bank, laundered through the DeVos family’s Spectrum Health and the Trump organization, to do illegal internet hokey pokey to influence [voters].
[…] It started Friday night, while we were distracted by Andrew McCabe and Stormy Daniels, when Facebook unceremoniously put CA in Facebook jail for misusing user data. How many people? Oh, just like 50 MILLION AMERICANS, which is about a quarter of American Facebook users. But why now, though? Why so suddenly? Did Facebook just come to this conclusion all by itself, or was this more of a “there is a whistleblower named Christopher Wylie who is about to fuck all our shit up” situation? […]
The short version on how this worked was that CA got data on 270,000 Facebook users from a third party app developer, a Russian-American with Kremlin ties (of course) named Aleksandr Kogan […]
Kogan nee Spectre is an “academic researcher” who made one of those doohickeys that is like “Answer these fifteen questions and we will tell you which Taylor Swift song you are!” kinds of things. Taking that data from the 270,000 users who clicked “Yes, this random app can pay me for my whole profile and also my credit card numbers if they want that!” and taking advantage of the fact that impressionable voters also don’t tend to have very good privacy settings, CA was able to harvest data on all those users’ friends as well — approximately 50,000,000 people, whose information the company has of course not gotten rid of, despite protests to the contrary. […]
Cambridge Analytica is particularly in trouble right now because it appears its CEO Alexander Nix and other CA executives have lied […] about the data they have, how they harvest it, and what they’ve used it for, in many hearings of America Congress and also England […]
Facebook’s stock price is currently in a deep slide downwards.
UPDATE: The head of communications for Channel 4 News just tweeted that the Cambridge Analytica report will be avaiable at their site – here – to UK and non-UK viewers beginning in a minute (7 PM GMT/3 PM ET).
Trump just said that sanctuary cities have to be eliminated because they are responsible of the opioid crisis. He wants to block all federal funds that go to sanctuary cities. He said that and lots more, like that sanctuary cities are protecting gang members (not true) and other lies.
He’s on an extended rant full of phrases like this: “the damage is huge,” “we have to get a lot smarter,” “we need tough guys,” and so forth. “We can be nice and we can be weak and then we won’t have a country left.” “We are seeking tougher penalties … and that penalty is going to be the death penalty.”
Trump is speaking in New Hampshire, laying out his plan to end the opioid crisis, (See SC’s comment 264, which raises some of the questions about Trump’s bogus “toughness.”)
Nix sits there and tells the prospective client that Cambridge Analytica is willing to bribe opposition candidates and record the bribe as evidence of corruption. He says that CA can send very good looking Ukranian girls to the opposition candidate’s home. He says that it doesn’t matter if “news” stories posted online are true, only that “they are believed.”
After all that, Nix and his cronies claimed that they often have conversations with potential clients that are meant to reveal any illegal or unethical intent on the part of the client.
When Cambridge Analytica personnel say that they suss out the fears, even the unconscious fears of voters and then aim content at them that stokes those fears, well that sounds like Trump’s modus operandi, only done with more digital finesse.
[…] diGenova became a prominent political figure during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, where he peddled all sorts of strange claims during hundreds of television appearances.
Years later, when the right was excited about Benghazi conspiracy theories, diGenova was once again on the airwaves, pushing unsubstantiated claims about the Obama administration intimidating witnesses. He soon after cited secret sources who told him Hillary Clinton would be indicted over her emails and was bound for prison.
More recently, diGenova was worked up about claims that former National Security Advisor Susan Rice ordered intelligence agencies to cooperate in some kind of illegal scheme involving Donald Trump’s communications with his staffers.
And against the backdrop of him getting one thing wrong after another, diGenova then started talking up an FBI conspiracy theory – which apparently helped him land a gig on the president’s legal team.
[…] The same qualities that make Joseph diGenova appear foolish in the eyes of the American mainstream are the very qualities that make him appealing to Trump. […] [Trump is] now adding a conspiracy theorist whom the president probably saw on Fox News, peddling a strange tale with no basis in fact. […].
Their attitude toward voters and the public is sickening. It’s all about covertly manipulating people through fear.
After all that, Nix and his cronies claimed that they often have conversations with potential clients that are meant to reveal any illegal or unethical intent on the part of the client.
BREAKING: Damian Collins, chair of UK parliament’s news inquiry, has called Cambridge Analytica whistleblower @chrisinsilico to give evidence next week to parliament. I predict: fireworks.
Wow. Britain’s Information Officer announces she is seeking a warranting to raid Cambridge Analytica and seize servers.
To be clear: this is [Chris Wylie]’s work. He gave a dossier of evidence to ICO last month and has been fully co-operating with the authorities…
Facebook has been “co-operative” with ICO says Elizabeth Denham. Cambridge Analytica on the other hand has required them to seek to use their statutory powers to compel evidence….
Two State Department officials involved in an effort to sideline a civil servant suspected of disloyalty to the President also oversee an internal communications channel that allows department employees to question the administration’s policy decisions.
The two officials’ management of the channel likely gives them access to the names of U.S. diplomats and other agency employees who openly disagree with administration policy — information that independent watchdogs and members of Congress fear could be used in the effort to marginalize those deemed insufficiently loyal. [Snipped info on the two men heading the dissent channel operation.]
[…] Under the current administration, diplomats have used that channel more than ever before, sending in cables signed by hundreds of federal employees protesting President Trump’s travel ban, refugee restrictions and other moves. The Trump administration has also openly expressed its distaste for the Dissent Channel, with then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer saying of diplomats who dissented with the travel ban: “They should either get with the program or they can go.” […]
Nick Schwellenbach, the Director of Investigations at the Project On Government Oversight, said he worries about Hook and Lacey’s oversight of the Dissent Channel, based on their recently revealed involvement in the effort to sideline a staffer based on her political views. […]
“Now we know that they actively took measures to sideline career employees they didn’t think were sufficiently loyal. Did Hook or other appointees misuse Dissent Channel information they were privy to?” Schwellenbach told TPM. “In the emails obtained by the House Oversight minority, Hook demonstrates that he is freewheeling and isn’t acting in good faith with correspondence from career staff shared with him in confidence. It isn’t a stretch to wonder if he acted inappropriately with communications made over the Dissent Channel.” […]
After an extensive e-mail chain, which included speculation about whether she cried when President Trump was elected, Nowrouzzadeh was pushed out of her role at the Policy Planning office three months before her stint there was set to end. […]
Cadwalladr: “What is Facebook doing at Cambridge Analytica’s offices tonight??? Good question from MP @DamianCollins. This should be a matter for the authorities, he says. Exactly. Also #WheresZuck?”
More nonsense and hyper-bloviating from Trump’s opioid speech today:
[…] “Ninety percent of the heroin in America comes from our southern border, where eventually the Democrats will agree with us and we’ll build the wall to keep the damn drugs out.”
[…] accusing sanctuary cities of shielding “dangerous criminals” and releasing “illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members back into our communities.”
“If we don’t get tough with the drug dealers, we’re wasting our time — and that toughness includes the death penalty,” the president said. […]
“I don’t want to leave at the end of seven years and have this problem,” Trump said when talking about getting tough on drug dealers. […]
“Our Department of Justice is looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies. We’ll bring it at a federal level,” Trump said. […]
I would like to see the specific plan when it comes to filing lawsuits against drug companies. That sound like another vague promise from Trump, a promise that will not be kept or that will be kept by taking the least action possible … all for show.
I would like to see the specific plan when it comes to filing lawsuits against drug companies. That sound like another vague promise from Trump, a promise that will not be kept or that will be kept by taking the least action possible … all for show.
And likely an attempt to get drug companies to give him money.
Two bits of trivia (both entirely from memory) on the McCabe firing: First — and this is just pure coincidence, but amusing — Watergate’s “Deep Throat”, Mark Felt, was also FBI № 2. Second, on the pension: My recollection is most(? all?) federal government pensions accrue over the lifetime employment history with the government, and regardless of gaps, changes of position, etc. As such, and assuming some exception doesn’t (legitimately) apply, the idea of (re-)hiring McCabe for at least the two days or whatever should fly.
Cadwalladr: “If you are watching the Cambridge Analytica story unfold, please please support our journalism. We’ve fought off 3 legal threats from CA & 1 from Facebook. It’s a whole year’s work & we gave it to @Channel4News & @nytimes for the greater good. We need you!”
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant (R) signed the country’s most restrictive abortion bill into law Monday, banning abortion after 15 weeks gestation. The law will take effect immediately, and makes exceptions only for cases of fetal abnormality or medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest.
The governor has said his “goal is to end abortions in Mississippi” and this law effectively does just that. But the state’s only abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is preparing an immediate legal challenge […]
Bryant has said he aims to make Mississippi the safest place in America for an unborn child, but the state is faring poorly when it comes to protecting infants and children. According to a 2018 report by the United Health Foundation, Mississippi is ranked as the worst state in the country for clinical care for children and has the highest infant mortality and premature death rates. […]
In a strange Monday afternoon speech on opioid policy, President Donald Trump dedicated the bulk of his time to ideas that would be likely to worsen the crisis. […]
He spent the top of the speech reiterating his desire to see major drug dealers put to death, extolling the virtues of such bloody example-making to bursts of applause from his audience, mentioned the two promising initiatives briefly, then pivoted to familiar railing against immigration policies he hates. […]
The White House and congressional Democrats traded immigration offers futilely over the weekend, according to three sources familiar with the talks, leaving little chance of an immediate deal to protect Dreamers.
The White House on Sunday made an 11th-hour push to include billions of dollars in border wall funding in a massive congressional spending bill due this week, but it clashed with congressional Democrats over how far to go in protecting young immigrants who face deportation, the sources said.
White House officials asked Democrats to approve $25 billion for President Donald Trump’s border wall in exchange for extending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program through fall of 2020, those sources said. That would give Trump his full wall funding request in the must-pass spending bill and still give him leverage over the DACA program heading into his 2020 reelection campaign.
But Democrats balked, demanding that the White House provide a pathway to citizenship to 1.8 million young immigrants eligible under the DACA program, those sources said. The White House might have been open to negotiating further, but Democrats were only willing to entertain the massive wall funding figure in exchange for helping the same number of immigrants that Trump embraced in a proposal earlier this year. […]
Follow-up to @103, The UK’s hair furor worship department, the Home Office, has reversed its illegal attempt to deport two Mexicans scholars, Home Office U-turn on Durham University academics’ deportation. And as is typical, no apology or explanation.
blfsays
The UK’s nazis may be about to go Ker-Splat! Ukip on brink of bankruptcy after £175,000 legal bill: “Party hit with bill for its part in libel action involving one of its MEPs and three Labour MPs”. Apparently, they deliberately dragged out a losing lawsuit until after the election in the belief that keeping the case unsettled would harm their opponents. When the nazis finally did loose the case, their “brilliant” strategy meant the costs had ballooned enormously, now to the point where it is suspected they won’t be able to pay. However, this is still, apparently, only a fraction of the total costs, the article suggests the winning side has a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.
blfsays
Correction to me@296: I retract the last sentence, “However, this is still, apparently, only a fraction of the total costs, the article suggests the winning side has a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.” I got the names of the individuals confused. It is the nazi MEP, who lost the case, and not the winners of the case, who also has a “a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.” Apologies for the confusion.
Facebook’s chief information security officer, Alex Stamos, will leave the company after internal disagreements over how the social network should deal with its role in spreading disinformation, according to current and former employees briefed on the matter.
Mr. Stamos had been a strong advocate inside the company for investigating and disclosing Russian activity on Facebook, often to the consternation of other top executives, including Sheryl Sandberg, the social network’s chief operating officer, according to the current and former employees, who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters.
…
Mr. Stamos would be the first high-ranking employee to leave Facebook since controversy erupted over disinformation on its site. His departure is a sign of heightened leadership tensions at the company.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, Ms. Sandberg and other company leaders have struggled to address a growing set of problems, including Russian interference on the platform, the rise of false news, and the disclosure this past weekend that 50 million of its user profiles had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a voter-profiling company that worked on President Trump’s election campaign.
Sen. Feinstein: “I’m asking @ChuckGrassley to join me in seeking documents and testimony from Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, whistleblower Christopher Wylie, Professor Aleksandr Kogan and Trump campaign officials.”
OK I give up – Alex Stamos: “Despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook. It’s true that my role did change. I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.”
This is fucking ridiculous. Who the hell is going to be accountable to provide answers from this company?
Daniel Dale’s livetweeting of Trumps opioid speech today. (See Lynna @ #s 276 and 285 above.) This is really tragic – desperate people actually believed this charlatan’s promises about how he would fix things. We’re 14 months in. I don’t want to think about how many deaths could have been prevented had he not been in office and how many more are still to come. And then there are all of the social harms caused by the revival of the worst drug-war tropes and policies, disastrously combined with Trump’s and the Republicans’ corruption.
[…]
The Guardian asked Facebook several questions about its recruitment of Chancellor[†] and any action it had taken in light of the data harvesting scam conducted by GSR. Facebook initially promised to respond to a set of questions by Sunday, but then said it had nothing to say on the matter. […]
The above-excerpted article points out the Grauniad alerted Farcebork to the Kogan / GSR / Cambridge Analytica antics in December 2015 (Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users), but as previously-mentioned, Farcebork appears to have done nothing and also possibly hide / lied about the activity. Whilst that 2015 report did not name Chancellor† it did name both Dr Aleksandr Kogan and the firm he and Chancellor had set up: Global Science Research (GSR), who is quoted as claiming it “owns a massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States — for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles”.
† Joseph Chancellor, “one of two founding directors of Global Science Research (GSR), the company that harvested Facebook data using a personality app under the guise of academic research and later shared the data with Cambridge Analytica”, and “is still working as a researcher at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters in California”.
To clarify further :), Ferrari is/was innovative and sophisticated…at cheating. That’s a different claim from suggesting he was innovative and sophisticated in sports medicine. CA can be a shit data analysis and strategic communications company in the sense these are generally understood, and an innovative data stealing and strategic cheating company.
Update to #281 – a woman whose name I didn’t catch confirmed to Chris Hayes that the next installment, about the US and Trump, will air tomorrow evening (UK) and afternoon (US).
“Russian scientist Leonid Rink has confirmed work on #Novichok agents was done at the Shikhany chemical weapons base near Saratov. Says the Novichok-5 variant was weaponized. Important news via the official RIA Novosti news agency.”
BREAKING: New details about Aleksandr Kogan’s research. A different personality quiz he was using to pull @facebook data via its API in St Petersburg in summer 2014. To measure – gulp – the “dark triad”: psychopathy, narcissism, machiavellianism
That’s summer 2014, when he was also pulling @facebook data for Cambridge Analytica. Summer 2014 when Cambridge Analytica was pitching to Lukoil. Summer 2014, when Robert Mueller’s indicted Russians were starting to use the platform for “information warfare”..
Specialists from St. Petersburg State University, hope that in the future, based on the results of such studies, it will be possible to create a general psychological portrait of a person.
Since the 2016 election, Facebook has paid unusual attention to the reputations of Mr. Zuckerberg and Ms. Sandberg, conducting polls to track how they are viewed by the public, said Tavis McGinn, who was recruited to the company last April and headed the executive reputation efforts through September 2017.
Mr. McGinn, who now heads Honest Data, which has done polling about Facebook’s reputation in different countries, said Facebook is “caught in a Catch-22.”
“Facebook cares so much about its image that the executives don’t want to come out and tell the whole truth when things go wrong,” he said. “But if they don’t, it damages their image.”
Mr. McGinn said he left Facebook after becoming disillusioned with the company’s conduct.
Sen. Ted Cruz is under fire for his connections with a voter targeting firm that used data taken from 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge.
The Cruz presidential campaign touted its collaboration with Cambridge Analytica as a sign of a cutting edge run for the White House, allowing the Texan to carefully identify likely supporters. The firm shifted allegiance to Donald Trump once the Texan dropped out of the GOP primaries.
Both campaigns pumped millions into the company, controlled by billionaire Robert Mercer — a key patron first of Cruz and then Trump in 2016.
Cruz continued work with Cambridge Analytica for six months after allegations surfaced in December 2015 that the firm was using Facebook data it had received illicitly. Recent revelations show the data harvesting was far more extensive than previously suspected, and possibly among the biggest privacy breaches in history.
…
Texas Democrats blasted Cruz on Monday for benefiting from a “massive invasion of privacy” and demanded that Cruz explain when he knew the company had engaged in “deceitful activity.”
…
A New York Times report published Saturday reopened questions about the firm and its methods, and the links between the Mercers, Trump, and erstwhile Trump adviser Steve Bannon.
In July 2015, Rick Tyler, then a spokesman for Cruz, said the campaign used the data to identify potential voters by six personality types. He hailed the Cambridge data as “better than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“This allows us to go into Iowa and match those traits with likely caucus-goers,” he told Politico, referring to the February contest that Cruz ended up winning.
As questions ramped up about the Mercers’ involvement with Cambridge in the following months, Tyler said he didn’t “know all the details of ownership,” according to an October 2015 interview with The Washington Post.
…
The Cruz campaign paid Cambridge Analytica $5.8 million between July 2015 and June 2016 for services that included “voter ID targeting,” “voter modeling” and “survey research/donor modeling,” according to the campaign’s FEC reports.
The last payment was made a month after he suspended his campaign on May 3.
Cruz’s leadership PAC, the Jobs Growth and Freedom Fund, paid the firm another $133,000 in October 2014, for a total of $5.94 million.
TONIGHT further revelations from our undercover investigation into #CambridgeAnalyticaUncovered – as we focus on the work they did on the Trump campaign.
Again, that’s 3 PM ET in the US. I hope/assume they’ll put it on YouTube again like they did yesterday.
Oggie.says
I’ve been thinking about this long and hard: is there anyone out there who was involved with the Trump campaign who did not break the law before or during the campaign? Is there any business with which they had close dealings who did not break the law? The only person I can come up with who may be relatively clean (and I do mean relatively) from a criminal aspect is the idiot Bannon. It seems like everyone else, from Cambridge Annalytica to the company selling MAGA paraphernalia, from Flynn to Kushner to, well, everyone involved int he campaign, they are a bunch of criminals.
On another note, I have become so cynical that when I hear any candidate talk about being a law and order candidate, the first question in my mind is, what crime has he/she committed?
Oggie @319: Bannon was accused of spousal abuse, but he got away with it by threatening his spouse so effectively that she didn’t show up for the court hearing.
Hillary Clinton spoke at an event in October, and in reference to some of her conservative critics, the former Secretary of State joked, “It appears they don’t know I’m not president.”
The line came to mind last night when Fox News’ Sean Hannity asked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) whether he has “any doubt” that Clinton committed “crimes” with her email server protocols. The Republican congressman replied, in apparent reference to the former Democratic official:
“Well, as you know, our committee continues to look at conspiracy. We are looking at obstruction, we are looking at misleading Congress and also there’s the statute in the civil rights code that involves I think abuse of power and using your position to go after someone personally.”
After explaining his committee’s ongoing interest in Hillary Clinton, Nunes added, “The American people expect the intelligence agencies not to be political.”
I didn’t know Nunes was a comedian. Gotta pause here. Laughing too much to continue.
[…] Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is moving forward with plans “to subpoena the Justice Department for records gathered by its inspector general in his review of how the FBI handled its 2016 investigation of Hillary Clinton.” […]
[Meanwhile] the House Intelligence Committee, under Nunes’ tutelage, has gone to almost comical lengths to help cover up the Republican president’s alleged misdeeds.
Clinton remains the star of the GOP’s show, and not just on Capitol Hill. Donald Trump tweets about her regularly, including three times this past weekend. During a recent speech, the president said he wants to send Americans to Mars – unlike Clinton. During a recent press conference alongside Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Trump made multiple references to his former rival.
In January, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway insisted, “Nobody here talks about her. Nobody here talks about Hillary Clinton, I promise you.”
Of course not. Why would anyone think otherwise? What could possibly lead anyone to think the president and his party have some kind of unhealthy fixation on the former Democratic candidate?
[…] Trump’s legal team is effectively offering pre-written narrative vignettes about episodes that are the subject of ongoing federal scrutiny. Mueller and his investigators, the theory goes, would read the written narratives, feel satisfied, and find no reason to explore these issues in any detail during an in-person interview.
Let’s pause again for peals of incredulous laughter.
[…] Not to put too fine a point on this, but the moral of the story isn’t subtle. The president’s attorneys are aware of the problem the public already recognizes: Donald Trump, just as a matter of course, says things that aren’t true. The president lies, habitually, about matters large and small, sometimes to get himself out of a jam, and sometimes for no apparent reason at all.
Having him sit down with Robert Mueller is therefore profoundly dangerous, leaving Trump’s lawyers in an impossible position. If they refuse to cooperate, the president will look guilty. If they agree to an interview, the president is likely to lie to federal investigators, which is a crime. […]
Update on the school shooting in Maryland: The school resource officer fired one shot at the shooter, who was armed with a handgun. No word yet on if the resource officer killed the shooter, or if the shooter took his own life (simultaneous shots, apparently). One 16 year old girl was critically wounded and is in the hospital. One 14 year old boy was wounded and is now in “good condition” in the hospital.
In this case we do not have a student armed with an AR-15 type rifle. In this case we have a resource office who ran towards the sound of the shots, and who did engage the shooter.
Melania Trump is hosting executives from major online and social media companies to discuss cyberbullying and internet safety, more than a year after saying that would be her issue as first lady.
The meeting Tuesday marks her first public event on the topic, a choice some observers have questioned given that her husband often berates people on Twitter. […]
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump, told MSNBC on Monday night that he has not received an interview request from Fox News.
“What is shocking to me is, I haven’t received a single request, not one, from Fox News,” Avenatti said on MSNBC’s “The Beat” after noting that he’s done interviews with a slew of news outlets. “They’ve reached out to me for copies of documents and things of that nature, and I’ve cooperated with them, just like I have with other networks, and I’ve been prompt in attending to their requests. But I haven’t received a single interview request, not one, from Fox News.” […]
In terms of media coverage, Avenatti is winning and Trump is losing. Avenatti also made the point that Trump was aware that Stormy Daniels was physically threatened. Avenatti would not provide details.
As you may already know, government funding runs out … again … this Friday. The Republican-dominated Congress is fighting to keep as culture-war provisions in the omnibus funding bill as possible, while throwing out as many good, bipartisan reforms as possible.
One example: Congress is going to keep the system it now uses to pay sexual harassment settlements with taxpayer money.
An overhaul of Capitol Hill’s workplace misconduct system is in jeopardy and likely won’t be attached to a government spending bill this week, diminishing the likelihood of reform before the midterm elections […]
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), who introduced the bipartisan Congressional Harassment Reform Act last December, said on Monday that House and Senate leadership “stripped” provisions from the language from the spending bill at the eleventh hour. […]
An example of a poison pill being used to quash health insurance reform:
Republicans in the House and Senate released a bill Monday afternoon that aims to shore up Obamacare’s damaged individual market and bring down insurance premiums. The bill would bring back the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to health insurers that President Trump terminated last year, pour $30 billion into a federal reinsurance program, and fully restore funding to the open- enrollment outreach work that the federal government abandoned when Trump took office.
Sounds great! Right? Not so fast.
The bill, however, is dead on arrival with Democrats, because it applies the Hyde Amendment — a 1976 law that bans federal dollars from funding abortion services — to subsidies for private insurance plans. The language in the bill dictates that no private plan on the Affordable Care Act market that covers abortion care — which all plans in New York and California do by law — can receive a cost-sharing reduction subsidy, even if the patient buying the plan never has an abortion.
Another provision alienating Democrats would allow state governors to apply for federal waivers for Obamacare’s rules without getting permission from their state legislatures. […]
Here’s the tie-in to the omnibus funding bill:
[…] The stabilization bill’s last, best chance for passage is the budget omnibus that must get to the President’s desk by Friday to avoid (another) government shutdown. Due to the Trump administration’s efforts to sabotage Obamacare and Congress’ efforts to repeal the individual mandate, insurance companies are expected to announce major premium hikes for 2019 if the stabilization bill does not pass.[…]
“The special counsel should be free to follow through with his investigation to its completion without interference,” the Wisconsin Republican said during a House GOP leadership news conference on Capitol Hill. “Absolutely, I am confident that he will be allowed to do that.”
He continued, “I have received assurances that his firing is not even under consideration. We have a system based upon the rule of law in this country. We have a justice system and no one is based on that justice system.”
Which is all well and good except for the fact that we have a President who is absolutely incapable of thinking about what will happen tomorrow. He is incapable of making any plans. He is incapable of coherent strategy (hell, he’s incapable of coherency). Which means that either someone in the White House is engaged in some very, very, very, very, very, very wishful thinking, or Trump himself communicated this information to Ryan but, not to worry, Trump will change his mind three times before he turns of Fox News this afternoon. After he watches Fox, who knows? Trump doesn’t know, so there is no way in hell that anyone in the White House, much less Ryan, knows what Trump will do.
According to news from the Kremlin, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on having been re-elected.
[…] Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that the two leaders didn’t discuss the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in Britain.
Of course not, why would Trump bring up something that makes Putin look bad?
[…] The Kremlin said Putin and Trump also discussed the Ukrainian crisis and the 7-year Syrian war, talked about expanding economic ties and discussed energy issues.
The presidents “agreed to develop further bilateral contacts, taking into account changes in the U.S. State Department,” the Kremlin statement said in a reference to Trump’s decision to replace Secretary of State Rex Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo.
“A special attention was given to considering the issue of a possible bilateral summit,” the Kremlin statement said. […]
The Trump administration cut funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs.
In the notes provided to NBC News, Evelyn Kappeler, who for eight years has led the Office of Adolescent Health, which administers the program, repeatedly expressed concerns about terminating the program, but appeared out of the decision-making loop and at one point was driven to tears.
In a July 17, 2017 note, she says she was admonished to “get in line” and told it was not her place to ask questions about the agency’s use of funds. In a July 28 note, Kappeler recalled she was “frustrated about the time this process is taking and the fact that (her staff) has not been part of the discussions.” She described being “so rattled” that “my reaction when I got on (sic) the phone was to cry.”
She and her staff “were not aware of the grant action until the last minute” — an apparent reference to the decision, it says.
[…] This was Trump political appointees—or, as Kelly Macias described them—“a bunch of vulgar morons with retrograde views” all along. Screw the program’s success at preventing teen pregnancy, the abstinence-only crowd wouldn’t have it. So more teens will get pregnant and then the Trump administration will do everything possible to force them to have children, only to deny them health care and food aid. Impoverished motherhood is what Republicans want for America’s teen girls, and that means poverty for their children, too.
The NRA continues to go after the survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting:
The NRA has put together an attack ad going after Parkland school shooting survivor David Hogg in particular, and the March For Our Lives in general.
In the ad, NRA TV personality Colion Noir criticizes a comment Hogg made in an ad promoting the march.
“What if our politicians weren’t the [B-word] of the NRA,” Hogg said.
Noir responds to Hogg’s comment with a string of his own questions, including: “What if we didn’t exploit the trauma of kids to push a political agenda? What if the media actually covered the kids that completely disagree with you? What if we had put armed guards in every school in America five years ago when the NRA first pushed for it?”
Noir goes as far as to suggest that teachers should be armed with AR-15s […]
“What if the football coach who heroically sacrificed his life had an AR-15 instead of empty hands?” Noir says, […]
Noir attacks Hogg as “childish,” saying, “What if I told you that calling someone a [B-word] because they disagree with you isn’t American, it’s just childish.”
It’s odd that the NRA is lecturing high school students on manners, given that Ted Nugent is a board member. Nugent called then-President Obama a “piece of shit” and a “subhuman mongrel,” and Hillary Clinton a “worthless [B-word]” who should “be tried for treason & hung.” […]
The head of a Christian university compares LGBTQ people to ISIS:
Everett Piper, the president of Oklahoma Wesleyan University with a national platform for his conservative views, capitalized on that platform earlier this month with an op-ed comparing LGBTQ people to ISIS.
In his opinion piece published in the Washington Times, Piper argues that moral approval of same-sex relations constitutes a slippery slope (a common logical fallacy) that leads to approval for pederasty, adultery and incest. He proposes an exercise to help those who don’t share his irrational fear:
Go to any article in any magazine or website that argues for “conversations” about sexual morality and simply replace the acronym of the day with another set of letters. For example, every time you see LGBTQ in an article, simply replace those letters with ISIS. Change nothing else. […]
In doing this, something will quickly become quite obvious. Sentences will emerge such as these: “Love is love and ISIS has the right to love who they want to love.” “The ISIS community simply wants to be accepted and affirmed.” “What right does anyone have to refuse to bake a cake for an ISIS wedding?” As such absurdities jump off the page, hopefully it becomes clear how absolutely ridiculous our culture’s game of sexual politics has become.
[…] “In this brave new world of hyphens and acronyms, we paint ourselves into a corner of ‘tolerance’ where we must affirm the proclivities of anyone who ‘identifies’ as ISIS just as much as we do all who identify as LGBTQ,” he writes.
Piper truly doesn’t know how to morally distinguish between someone who might be gay and someone with hateful views. […]
House GOP leaders are starting to come out in strong support of a second special counsel to investigate conservative allegations of bias and abuse at the FBI.
Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Monday he backs the appointment of another special counsel to look at how law enforcement has handled the Russia probe. Scalise’s statement echoed similar calls from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the weekend.
The moves align the No. 2 and No. 3 House GOP leaders with President Trump, who could be a factor in a future leadership race between the two friendly rivals.
Neither Scalise nor McCarthy wants any daylight between themselves and Trump […]
“I agree with the many others who have called for the appointment of an additional special counsel,” Scalise said in a statement Monday.
“We need a second special counsel,” McCarthy told Fox News on Saturday. […]
Congressional leadership is publicly mulling another stopgap spending bill to prevent a third government shutdown as lawmakers race to finalize a mammoth funding legislation.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, said on Tuesday that with the timeline for votes slipping in the House, lawmakers could be forced to approve a days-long continuing resolution (CR) before Friday night’s deadline.
“It just means we’re going to be here into the weekend perhaps and there may have to be some measures take to keep the lights on, but we’ll get it done,” he told reporters on Tuesday.
Asked if one of those measures would be a stopgap bill, he added: “That would be the one thing we could do, yeah.” […]
It looks like Trump will be going to court to face Summer Zervos.
A Manhattan Supreme Court judge has ruled that President Trump’s job in the White House does not give him immunity from a defamation lawsuit filed against him by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.
“[…] a sitting president is not immune from being sued in federal court for unofficial acts,” Justice Jennifer Schecter wrote in a ruling released Tuesday, according to the New York Post.
“It left open the question of whether concerns of federalism and comity compel a different conclusion for suits brought in state court. Because they do not, defendant’s motion to dismiss this case or hold it in abeyance is denied.” […]
An American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections. And by doing so with Vladimir Putin, President Trump insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country’s future, including the countless Russian patriots who have risked so much to protest and resist Putin’s regime.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked during the press briefing today why Trump was now going after Mueller by name in his tweets. Sanders answered:
Look, the President has been very clear about the fact that there was no collusion between his campaign and any other entity,” Sanders responded. “However, to pretend like going through this absurd process for over a year would not bring frustration seems a little bit ridiculous.
[Members of Congress wouldn’t like it] if they had been accused of taking their seat in Congress by doing something nefarious when they hadn’t, particularly if it had went on for more than a year into their time in office.
My guess is they would be more than anxious to push back and certainly would defend themselves as the president has clearly done in this situation and has since day one.
Clearly, we have not been shy about the fact that there is frustration of this process. We would like it to end quickly and soon and the President has contended since day one and will continue to do so, that there was absolutely no collusion between his campaign and any outside force or country and so I don’t understand why it’s hard for anyone to process.
If you had been attacked mercilessly and continuously day in, day out, every single second while you’re trying to work hard to do good things for this country, and literally every day you wake up to an onslaught of people saying that you’re there because of reasons that are completely false, that’s frustrating and certainly I think fair for him to be frustrated.
EXCLUSIVE/BREAKING: Former Playboy model Karen McDougal sues to get out of “catch and kill” deal with National Enquirer parent Co. silencing her story of affair with Trump.
Former President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean believes that […] Trump has gone further than Nixon and has a “very public obstruction of justice.”
“He [Trump], as I see it, has already exceeded everything that Nixon did,” Dean told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday night. “He’s really much more intimately involved than Nixon ever was in the coverup.”
“Nixon was behind closed doors, so everyone was surprised when there were recordings of it,” Dean explained. “Trump is just right out front on it and he’s doing it very publicly.”
The comments follow Trump’s outbursts this weekend about Special Counsel Robert Mueller, as well as the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. […]
Cooper said it was a “stunning statement” and asked if Dean truly believed Trump has gone “farther than Richard Nixon did to obstruct justice.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Dean replied. “I think Trump is Nixon on steroids and stilts.” […]
Stephen Colbert thinks Trump is gearing up to fire Mueller. Scroll down for the video, which is about 8 minutes long.
Colbert’s ridicule of Trump’s phrase “hardened Democrats” is particularly funny.
blfsays
French ex-President Sarkoführer is being held for questioning over a long-running claim Libyan Kookdafi illegally financed the 2007 campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy in police custody over Gaddafi allegations. It’s a long and involved tale: “Investigators are examining claims that Gaddafi’s regime secretly gave Sarkozy €50m overall for the 2007 campaign. Such a sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit, which was €21m at the time. The alleged payments would also violate French rules against foreign financing and declaring the source of campaign funds.”
[…]
A written directive released at the end of February by the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops (TCCB), the church’s influential public policy voice in the state, directed all parishes to refrain from activities with powerful Texas Right To Life (TRTL), the state’s oldest and largest pro-life organization.
TRTL is a very influential lobby group, well-funded by GOP donors and its endorsements of candidates can fundamentally affect elections.
The Catholic Church’s bishops’ directive stated that TRTL has engaged in misleading attacks against political candidates, lied about the Catholic church’s position on state legislation and argued that church-supported bills don’t do enough to limit abortions.
According to the bishops, TRTL undermines the anti-abortion agenda laid out by Pope John Paul II because of its extremist policies.
March 20 must be laugh-a-lots day. Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge notes today is when “The Republican Party of the United States was organized [… in 1854]” (and is also the day Isaac Newton died in 1726), challenging that hypothesis.
[…]
“It seems a difference not of opinion but of process and focus when it comes to incremental [anti-abortion] changes versus strident ones,” says Stephen Stein, who attends St Mary’s Cathedral in Austin […]
The dispute isn’t just over abortion, though. The two groups clashed over end-of-life reforms, with the directive saying that TRTL has falsely implied that relevant legislation backed by the bishops supporting a balance between patient autonomy and medical best practise would allow euthanasia and death panels.
The final straw was a TRTL scorecard system used to show which Texas politicians are pro-life, which the bishops said isn’t based on fair analysis rather upon whether a politician has followed TRTL’s voting recommendations, resulting in other pro-life politicians being unfairly penalised during local elections last year.
[…]
Most likely it’s about money (TRTL is “well-funded”, which is as effective as attracting bishops as young children): Follow the money!
The only person I can come up with who may be relatively clean (and I do mean relatively) from a criminal aspect is the idiot Bannon. It seems like everyone else, from Cambridge Annalytica to the company selling MAGA paraphernalia, from Flynn to Kushner to, well, everyone involved int he campaign, they are a bunch of criminals.
Bannon is up to his ears in Cambridge Analytica. He came up with the name (because he’s a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who was obsessed with conveying a connection to real scholarship). He brought in the Mercers’ money. He is/was a Vice President and board member.
Re #s 344 and 345: Carole Cadwalladr points out that “…Cambridge Analytica exists only on paper. Alexander Nix is CEO of SCL Elections. From which he hasn’t been suspended.” It appears the suspension, like everything else about CA, is a sham.
KGsays
I’m not sure how far the fame of Jacob Rees-Mogg has crossed the Atlantic. He’s a particularly repulsive right-wing Tory, who has been touted recently as a future Tory Prime Minister, an arch-Brexiteer who opposes abortion even in the case of rape, among other reactionary stances. He has been telling Theresa May that “tyrants must be stood up to” since the Salisbury nerve agent attack, but it turns out that a company in which he is a partner – and from which he receives nearly £15,000 a month for 30 hours’ work – has invested £60,000,000 in a Russian bank which has been under EU sanctions since 2014. This is not illegal, but the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
It’s not just that he’s silent in public. Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg declined to face his employees on Tuesday to explain the company’s role in a widening international scandal over the 2016 election.
Facebook employees on Tuesday got the opportunity for an internal briefing and question-and-answer session about Facebook’s role with the Trump-aligned data firm Cambridge Analytica. It was the first the company held to brief and reassure employees after, ahead of damaging news reports, Facebook abruptly suspended Cambridge Analytica. The Q&A session was first reported by The Verge.
But Zuckerberg himself wasn’t there, The Daily Beast has learned. Instead, the session was conducted by a Facebook attorney, Paul Grewal, according to a source familiar with the meeting. That was the same approach the company used on Capitol Hill this past fall, when it sent its top attorney, Colin Stretch, to brief Congress about the prevalence of Russian propaganda, to include paid ads and inauthentic accounts, on its platform.
Nor, The Daily Beast has learned, did chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg attend the internal town hall.
A retired United States Army lieutenant colonel and Fox News contributor quit Tuesday and denounced the network and President Donald Trump in an email to colleagues.
“Fox has degenerated from providing a legitimate and much-needed outlet for conservative voices to a mere propaganda machine for a destructive and ethically ruinous administration,” wrote Ralph Peters, a Fox News “strategic analyst.”
“Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed,” he wrote….
The whole email is at the link. This is the context for that last quote
…I feel compelled to explain why I have to leave. Four decades ago, I took an oath as a newly commissioned officer. I swore to “support and defend the Constitution,” and that oath did not expire when I took off my uniform. Today, I feel that Fox News is assaulting our constitutional order and the rule of law, while fostering corrosive and unjustified paranoia among viewers. Over my decade with Fox, I long was proud of the association. Now I am ashamed….
(He’s not rethinking his smearing of Obama, of course. Or pondering why this “sudden” change occurred.)
Johnson Joy departs from position as Ben Carson’s chief information officer after the Guardian disclosed link to colleague accused of fraud
One of the most senior officials in Ben Carson’s housing department has lost his job after the Guardian disclosed his link to a colleague accused of fraud and a federal watchdog received allegations of corruption in his office.
[…]
Joy had been running an opaque religious charity with Naved Jafry, a senior adviser to Joy at Hud, who previously resigned after the Guardian found he had exaggerated his biography and been repeatedly sued for alleged fraud.
Joy’s departure on Tuesday came as the Guardian was preparing a new article on a complaint filed by Joy’s former executive assistant, which alleged that she was fired from her job because she raised concerns about possible corruption in Joy’s office.
Katrina Hubbard said she was reassigned from her position and then terminated altogether in January soon after she raised the alarm within Hud about an apparent misuse of public funds.
“I reported information about fraud, waste and abuse, and as a result I was retaliated against,” Hubbard told the Guardian.
Ms Hubbard is not the official who blew the whistle on the $31,000 dining set, that was Helen Foster.
[… Ms Hubbard] said she discovered that Accel Corporation, a contractor that supplies Joy’s office with staff, was being systematically overpaid. Some Accel subcontractors were falsely classed in higher pay grades, she said, while some billed for days and hours they had not worked. […]
Jafry is connected to Accel Corp, possibly as a subcontractor.
All teh bestest peoples!
tomhsays
@ 352
Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday Ben Carson said that it was his wife, Candy, who purchased the $31,000 dining set for his office (with taxpayer money.) Nice guy, throw the wife under the bus. And he didn’t mention the staffer who was demoted for refusing to authorize the expense because there was a $5,000 limit on office improvements.
blfsays
Ok, brace yerselves. After all the bad news, and even hair furor, a real disaster has been reported. Fortunately, headdesking is an unlikely reaction here, but carefully positioned napkins and bibs and serviettes are suggested. Also, note carefully where the knife is.
[…]
It was lunchtime and outside the boulangerie just off Baron Haussmann’s celebrated Grands Boulevards in Paris, Pierre almost choked on his ham and butter baguette.
Claims that the French now eat more burgers than the traditional jambon-beurre baguette sandwiches were definitely not to his taste; what’s more, he did not believe them.
“C’est pas vrai ! (it’s not true),” he said, spluttering. “It’s what you call fake news, non ?” He looked wistfully at the crusty stick of bread, wrapped in greaseproof paper and a napkin in his hand.
“I have nothing against burgers, but …,” he paused. “Are you American? Is this why you are suggesting such a thing?”
At the Greater Paris union of patissiers and bakers, the response was much the same.
“We have 2,500 members in four departments and they sell a lot of baguette sandwiches,” said the person who answered the phone. “The problem is I don’t think anyone counts them, so how do these people know more hamburgers are sold?
“I really don’t know what I can say, but it doesn’t seem a very fair comparison to me.”
As claims that the American interloper, le hamburger, had knocked France’s favourite snack off the menu made headlines around the world, even the man who headed the research admitted this was not comparing like with like.
Bernard Boutboul, of the Paris-based restaurant consultancy Gira Conseil, interrupted his own lunch to tell the Guardian that reports of the jambon-beurre’s demise were greatly exaggerated.
His figures showed sales of the French classic had risen, though admittedly not as much as sales of burgers. About 2.4bn baguette sandwiches with a variety of fillings were sold in France last year, half of them jambon beurres, he said.
During the same period about 1.4bn burgers were sold in France, the vast majority in restaurants. Approximately 85% of France’s 145,000 restaurants, excluding fast-food chains, now have burgers on la carte.
I can believe that bit about non-fast “food” chains with le burger, most of the really good restaurants in the area do exactly that. Excepting some odd variations (e.g., le calamarburger), I’ve not tried any of them — I don’t really care for the dish.
The article goes on to note Monsieur Boutboul said “And for the last three years, there’s been this craze for the burger.” That also strikes me as plausible, I don’t recall seeing le burger on seemingly every menu just a few years ago. Indeed, France24 reports (Au revoir, baguette! France goes mad for le burger), “just 30 percent of the burgers were sold in fast food joints, with the majority sold at restaurants with full table service.”
France is famous for its haute cuisine and often credited for having the best eating habits in the world but things have changed over the years. These days the French increasingly indulge in junk food. Is ‘malbouffe à la française’ better quality? That’s debatable, but what’s certain is that more and more French people are overweight.
The good news is a new fromagerie has just opened in the village. First reviews from the mildly deranged penguin are encouraging.
President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers when he congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday on his reelection, including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” according to officials familiar with the call.
Trump also chose not to heed talking points from aides instructing him to condemn Putin about the recent poisoning of a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom with a powerful nerve agent, a case that both the British and U.S. governments have blamed on Moscow.
The president’s conversation with Putin, which Trump called a “very good call,” prompted fresh criticism of his muted tone toward one of the United States’s biggest geopolitical rivals amid the ongoing special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference and the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russian officials.
…
Trump’s failure to raise Moscow’s alleged poisoning of the former Russian spy in Britain risked angering officials in London, who are trying to rally Britain’s closest allies to condemn the attack. Russia has denied involvement in the March 4 poisoning, but the attack has badly damaged British-Russian relations and British Prime Minister Theresa May last week announced the expulsion of 23 Russian diplomats in retaliation….
David Shulkin risks being pushed out of his job. At the heart of his conflict with Trump: his resistance to aggressively privatizing veterans’ healthcare
The Donald Trump White House doesn’t embody chaos as much incompetence. There is no grand vision or architecture to Trumpism today: it’s a man, often isolated, watching far too much TV.
Courtiers come and courtiers go. No one is safe in a castle where the king changes his mind as easily as he changes the channel. Dystopia is staved off only because Trump is too frenzied and unfocused to realize it.
Meanwhile, we are left with bizarre scenes like Trump’s attempt to sack David Shulkin, his secretary of veteran affairs, and possibly install his energy secretary, Rick Perry. […]
When Trump appointed Shulkin last year, the veteran bureaucrat was arguably his most noncontroversial cabinet pick. He was confirmed 100–0 in the Senate. A member of the Obama administration, Shulkin had the backing of Democrats, Republicans and, most crucially, veterans groups. If there was one thing Trump did right last year, it was appoint Shulkin.
[…]
At the heart of the conflict is Shulkin’s resistance to aggressively privatizing veterans’ healthcare. Conservatives have long wanted the government out of healthcare and have fought to make this a reality in the wake of bipartisan efforts undertaken by Senators Bernie Sanders and John McCain to sure up the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in the wake of scandals in 2014 — inordinate wait times for vets and improper oversight of local hospitals from Washington.
The Sanders-McCain overhaul pumped money into the system and stabilized the VA. Bob McDonald, Obama’s VA secretary, was popular with veterans groups and many urged Trump to keep him. Shulkin’s selection was a seeming vote for continuity, and many of them breathed a sigh of relief.
[…] The American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, and other groups continue to back Shulkin.
Why? They are rightfully afraid of an unshackled rightwing drive to destroy government-run healthcare for veterans. The Koch brothers are funding the Concerned Veterans for America, a front group for their privatization efforts. If the Kochs and the Trumpists within the VA are successful, veterans will be price-gouged for their healthcare.
Congressional Democrats have blocked — for now — controversial legislation that would offer military veterans more access to for-profit health care at taxpayer expense […].
[… House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi] and other Democrats are concerned that the bill would diminish congressional oversight of the Department of Veterans Affairs, that it would go too far in outsourcing care and that it would not address some of agency’s biggest problems.
[…]
The legislation, which is popular within the White House but viewed skeptically among some veterans groups and Democrats, is a priority for Trump and has become part of the bitter fight over VA Secretary David Shulkin’s standing in the administration. Shulkin […] has fallen from favor with the White House in part over his reluctance to more fully support outsourcing veterans care.
Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, a conservative voice on veterans’ policy, has emerged as a leading candidate to replace embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who has fallen from favor with the Trump administration, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Hegseth […] is co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” a platform he has used to push his vision of a health-care system with a drastically smaller government footprint and a larger share of private care. He has railed against Shulkin and members of Congress in both political parties for their moderate approach to offering veterans access to private doctors.
Hegseth […] was previously executive director of the conservative advocacy groups Vets for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America, which is backed by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.
[…]
And we come full circle, back to the Kochroaches.
[…] Hegseth’s views on reforming the troubled agency are considered extreme even by some Republicans in Congress, and it is unclear if he could win Senate confirmation if President Trump decides to fire Shulkin.
Hegseth has been a confidant of Trump’s, who watches his Fox News show and frequently calls him to discuss veterans’ policy. Hegseth has dined at the White House and, during an Oval Office meeting between Trump and Shulkin last week, the president called Hegseth to seek his counsel on pending legislation that would expand private care.
Oh fer feck’s sake! Why all the charade, just call Putin directly.
[…]
The Koch political network has announced plans to spend substantial money to target incumbent Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections, among them Sen Jon Tester […], the [Senate Veterans’ Affairs C]ommittee’s ranking Democrat.
Tester, a Shulkin supporter, said in a recent statement, “Right now, what the veterans of this country need is a leadership team at VA and in the White House who will help us{…} improve access to quality VA health care. That means we need a Secretary who works for our veterans, not for the Koch brothers.”
Apparently hair furor has been twittering, Worst part about this is that so-called Republican @SenatorIsakson voted WITH socialist @SenSanders to block MORE health care choice for veterans. Sanders wants to trap vets in @DeptVetAffairs and so do Swamp creature ‘Republicans’ like Isakson. (Sen Johnny Isakson is the Committee’s chairman.)
(Contrary to the opinion column in the Grauniad, the last-excerpted Washington Post article claims Rick Perry “told reporters Wednesday that he is not interested in the [VA] job and that he is not considered a candidate.” I assume he is lying.)
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach could be facing a contempt order from a federal court after a judge on Tuesday tore into the Kansas Republican about repeatedly skirting her orders.
U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson chastised Kobach, a candidate for governor, at a contempt hearing for suggesting that her previous orders have left any room for ambiguity.
“I’ve had to police this over and over and over again,” Robinson said with frustration during the hearing in Kansas City, Kan.
Robinson in 2016 ordered Kobach to fully register thousands of Kansas voters who had registered at the DMV but had failed to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, as required by a Kansas law that Kobach crafted.
“The real question is why has the secretary of state not complied with it until he’s called on it. … There’s been no change of rules. There’s been no ambiguity,” Robinson said.
The contempt hearing capped two weeks of courtroom battles between Kobach and the American Civil Liberties Union as Robinson weighs whether federal law allows Kansas to impose the requirement.
Robinson will rule in the near future whether to hold Kobach in contempt of court and will separately rule on the overall case, which will determine whether thousands can cast ballots this November when Kansas elects a new governor.
The case holds political ramifications for Kobach as he seeks the GOP nomination for governor and could have national implications because Kobach has advised President Donald Trump on potential changes to federal voting laws.
…
Kobach’s office removed the election manual, which serves as a guide for election officials, from its website after the ACLU raised concerns because it stated that voters needed to provide proof of citizenship, in direct contradiction of the Robinson’s order.
“Instead of making that correction, Secretary Kobach simply took the manual down. He took his ball and went home,” said Ho, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project.
The judge told Kobach that she never instructed him to take down the manual, and she rejected his suggestion that changing the manual would be too complicated to accomplish quickly.
“That’s ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous process. … An online publication can’t be updated except for every seven years?” she said….
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
MSNBC reporting another explosion in Austin. A man injured, but injuries not life threatening.
One package was intercepted this morning. Possible surveillance video of the package sender.
Created by FBI in 2017, critics say designation broadly targets black activists and first prosecution may have begun.
US legislators met to discuss the FBI’s Black Identity Extremist (BIE) designation as a discriminatory measure that could be used by law enforcement to halt African American activism across the country.
Representative Karen Bass of the Congressional Black Caucus said at the hearing on Tuesday the term could be applied to “all protesters” demonstrating for an end to police violence against black people.
An August FBI intelligence assessment […] used the BIE designation to refer to armed members of the African American community who express anti-government sentiment.
The FBI document said these people have historically justified and perpetrated violence against law enforcement, which they perceived as representative of the institutionalised oppression of African Americans.
The FBI, Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security have historically defined “domestic terror” organisations that pose a threat to national security to groups such as eco-terrorists, white supremacists, anarchists, anti-abortion activists, and black nationalists.
Errol Southers, a former FBI agent who specialised in counter-terrorism, was concerned by the intelligence assessment broadly including BIEs — and its widely applicable definition — in that group.
“White supremacy applies to specific groups{…} BIE is applied more broadly,” Southers said.
He highlighted problems with the FBI’s definition, noting “black nationalists did not kill any police officer in 2017. Meanwhile, white supremacists and anti-government extremists fatally attacked a police officer and two corrections officers”.
[…]
“The first BIE prosecution has already begun,” Nana Gyamfi, an attorney and civil rights advocate, said at the hearing, referring to the case of Christopher Daniels.
Daniels — who goes by Rakem Balogun, leader of the Guerrilla Mainframe (GMF), an armed community outreach programme ranging from gun usage to organic farming — may be the first BIE.
Daniels has been detained since December on charges of illegal possession of a firearm. GMF maintains he was arrested not for illegally having a weapon, but for his political views.
A court transcript obtained by Al Jazeera […] showed the case against Daniels was based on anti-police political views he expressed on social media.
Special Agent Aaron Keighley testified the FBI had been surveilling Daniels since 2015, when the GMF participated in a rally against police violence.
The group’s chanting of slogans such as “the only good pig is a pig that’s dead” drew Keighley’s attention as being a threat to law enforcement officers, court documents showed. […]
By that “reasoning”, then the reaction of the St Louis policegoon’s union to the Rams football “hands up, don’t shoot” protest is a threat to quite a lot of people (St Louis Rams Players’ Display Is Condemned by Police Association, Dec-2014), “A spokesman for the police officers association, Jeff Roorda, made clear that the group would continue to speak up. In his statement, he said that cops have first amendment rights, too, and we plan to exercise ours. I’d remind the NFL. and their players that it is not the violent thugs burning down buildings that buy their advertisers’ products. It’s cops and the good people of St Louis and other NFL towns that do. Somebody needs to throw a flag on this play. If it’s not the NFL and the Rams, then it’ll be cops and their supporters.”
[… For] Gyamfi, the FBI’s surveillance of Daniels for his political rhetoric shows the “true and intent of the BIE classification”.
One package was intercepted this morning. Possible surveillance video of the package sender.
I hope that one will provide the necessary lead to catch the perpetrator(s).
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
Update from TRMS, tonight’s device was incendiary rather than explosive, in a Goodwill Store, from a donation bag.
Dang, I left off 5 bags of the Redheads clothes at a local Goodwill donation center today.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
James Comey will be interviewed about his upcoming book on 4/19 on TRMS. Rachael is very excited.
The bombing suspect in Austin is dead following a confrontation with police during which he detonated a device inside his car. He was reportedly 24 and white. I wonder if the WH knew this – they certainly knew that the targets were primarily black and Latina – when they declared yesterday that the serial bomber had no connections to terrorism.
Conservative strategist Stephen K. Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s early efforts to collect troves of Facebook data as part of an ambitious program to build detailed profiles of millions of American voters, a former employee of the data-science firm said Tuesday.
The 2014 effort was part of a high-tech form of voter persuasion touted by the company, which under Bannon identified and tested the power of anti-establishment messages that later would emerge as central themes in President Trump’s campaign speeches, according to Chris Wylie, who left the company at the end of that year.
Among the messages tested were “drain the swamp” and “deep state,” he said.
…
More than three years before he served as Trump’s chief political strategist, Bannon helped launch Cambridge Analytica with the financial backing of the wealthy Mercer family as part of a broader effort to create a populist power base. Earlier this year, the Mercers cut ties with Bannon after he was quoted making incendiary comments about Trump and his family.
In an interview Tuesday with The Washington Post at his lawyer’s London office, Wylie said that Bannon — while he was a top executive at Cambridge Analytica and head of Breitbart News — was deeply involved in the company’s strategy and approved spending nearly $1 million to acquire data, including Facebook profiles, in 2014.
“We had to get Bannon to approve everything at this point. Bannon was Alexander Nix’s boss,” said Wylie, who was Cambridge Analytica’s research director. “Alexander Nix didn’t have the authority to spend that much money without approval.”
…
The year before Trump announced his presidential bid, the data firm already had found a high level of alienation among young, white Americans with a conservative bent.
In focus groups arranged to test messages for the 2014 midterms, these voters responded to calls for building a new wall to block the entry of illegal immigrants, to reforms intended the “drain the swamp” of Washington’s entrenched political community and to thinly veiled forms of racism toward African Americans called “race realism,” he recounted.
The firm also tested views of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The only foreign thing we tested was Putin,” he said. “It turns out, there’s a lot of Americans who really like this idea of a really strong authoritarian leader and people were quite defensive in focus groups of Putin’s invasion of Crimea.”*
…
Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, SCL Group, has an ongoing contract with the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. The company was paid almost $500,000 to interview people overseas to understand the mind-set of Islamist militants as part of an effort to counter their online propaganda and block recruits.
Heather Nauert, the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy, said Tuesday that the contract was signed in November 2016, under the Obama administration, and has not expired yet. In public records, the contract is dated in February 2017, and the reason for the discrepancy was not clear. Nauert said that the State Department had signed other contracts with SCL Group in the past.
* It’s interesting how their “anti-establishment” sentiment fades when it comes to Putin, who’s held a dictatorial grip on power for 19 years. His rubber-stamp Duma, fawning state media, and subservient legal system evidently don’t constitute an establishment.
A British company accused of using dirty tricks to manipulate elections entrapped a Caribbean politician with the offer of a £1 million bribe to secure victory for its clients.
Alexander Nix, chief executive of Cambridge Analytica, has strenuously denied that the company uses “entrapment, bribes or so-called honeytraps” after he was filmed discussing the use of “beautiful Ukrainian girls” against political opponents. He said he was simply humouring the undercover reporter.
However, The Times has learnt that the SCL Group, parent company of Cambridge Analytica, carried out a “sting” on Lindsay Grant, leader of the opposition in St Kitts and Nevis, who was running against the country’s Labour Party — one of Cambridge Analytica’s clients — in January 2010….
(I’m not registered and so can’t read the full article. I’d like to learn the details of the racist email.)
Priorities in Trumpland: “Per @jeffzeleny, John Kelly is furious about the ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE’ leak. Plans to address it today. A leak that only a small group of people would know about.”
Patrick Wintour: “Whoever in the Russian ministry of foreign affairs thought it would be a good idea to broadcast the Skripal briefing with foreign diplomats live is either brave, or likely to find promotion elusive.”
The academic at the centre of Facebook’s data breach claims he has been unfairly scapegoated by the social network and Cambridge Analytica, the firm that acquired the information.
Aleksandr Kogan, a Moldovan-born researcher from Cambridge University, admits harvesting the personal details of 30 million Facebook users via a personality app he developed.
He then passed the data to Cambridge Analytica who assured him this was legal, he said.
Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie told the Observer that the data Kogan obtained was used to influence the outcome of the US presidential election, a charge the firm denies.
Kogan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday that he was being unjustly blamed for the scandal.
He said: “My view is that I’m being basically used as a scapegoat by both Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Honestly we thought we were acting perfectly appropriately. We thought we were doing something that was really normal.”
…
Kogan also disputed Cambridge Analytica’s claim that he had approached them with the idea.
He said: “That is a fabrication. They approached me; in terms of the usage of Facebook data they wrote the terms of service for the app. They provided the legal advice that this was all appropriate. So I’m definitely surprised by their comments and I don’t think they are accurate.”
…
Kogan said he was told that the scheme was legal but accepts he should have questioned the ethics of the exercise.
He said: “They [Cambridge Analytica] communicated that this would be a fully commercial project and that terms of service would be ones that allowed a broad licence for usage. What was communicated to me strongly is that thousands and maybe tens of thousands of apps were doing the exact same thing. And this was a pretty normal use case of Facebook data.”
…
Kogan said: “We were assured by Cambridge Analytica that everything was perfectly legal and within the limits of the terms of service. One of the great mistakes I did here was that I just didn’t ask enough questions.
…
While at Cambridge Kogan accepted a position at St Petersburg State University, and also took Russian government grants for research.
Kogan laughed off suspicions that he is linked to the Kremlin. He said: “This one is pretty funny … anyone who knows me knows I’m a very happy-go-lucky goofy guy, the last one to have any real links to espionage.”…
Bullshit. He’s an academic who collected this data from people who falsely believed it was being used for academic research (and tens of millions of their friends, who didn’t consent to this collection at all) and then gave or sold it to a shady political influence operation (he let them write the terms of service for the app? how the hell did he get human-subjects approval?). While he was connected to a Russian state university and receiving Russian state funding for seriously creepy research, which went unlisted on his 10-page CV.
None of this makes FB any less culpable, but bullshit.
SC @345, this what I thought would happen. The criminals change the company name, move to a new location (or locations) and then carry on as usual. Several people have made the point that the Cambridge Analytica database(s) still exist. There are multiple copies out there in the digital world, according to the whistleblower, Wylie.
So, yeah, the criminals are already up and running after putting on an updated disguise. They have, no doubt, big plans for the 2018 and 2020 elections in the USA. I’m sure they are still hard at work.
The connection with Erik Prince is disconcerting. JFC.
SC @374, oh yeah. Of course there are connections to Paul Manafort and multiple connections to the Mercer family. Looking more and more like an international gang of criminals.
It sounds more and more like Kogan acted, willingly, as a cutout for CA (and possibly others) to gain access to the FB data. The article @ #189 above says that “Kogan…had a licence from Facebook to collect profile information, but it was for research purposes only.” In the report @ #372, Kogan says that “in terms of the usage of Facebook data they [CA] wrote the terms of service for the app. They provided the legal advice that this was all appropriate.” He also claims he didn’t make money from it, which makes no sense if this was a business venture unconnected to his academic research. I don’t know who originally contacted whom, but the scheme is extraordinarily sketchy.
Republicans are still really upset over the Supreme Court ruling that killed their infamously gerrymandered district map for the state of Pennsylvania.
A dozen GOP Pennsylvania lawmakers filed legislation on Tuesday to impeach four Democratic state Supreme Court justices who ruled the state’s congressional map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered and replaced it with a new one.
The Republicans moved to impeach Justices David Wecht, Christine Donahue, Kevin Dougherty and Debra McCloskey Todd, all Democrats who found the state’s congressional map was designed to favor Republicans and must be replaced before the May primary. […]
The legislation comes a little more than a month after state Rep. Cris Dush (R) urged impeachment of the Democratic justices. The state Supreme Court ruled in January 5-2, along party lines, that congressional districts drawn in 2011 were so lopsided to benefit Republicans that they violated the guarantee of free and equal elections. The court gave lawmakers three weeks to draw a new map with Gov. Tom Wolf (D), but imposed its own plan once they failed to reach an agreement. Two Republican appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and a federal lawsuit have been unsuccessful in blocking the new map. […]
The hiring [of Joe diGenova, a conspiracy theorist and lawyer] caught many of his advisers by surprise, prompting fears that Trump is preparing for bigger changes to his legal team — including possible departures — as he goes on the offensive in the primary legal challenges facing him.
Trump is not consulting with top advisers, including Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and chief White House lawyer Donald McGahn, on his Russia legal choices or his comments about the probe, according to one person with knowledge of his actions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive conversations. He is instead watching television and calling friends, this person said.
From an earlier Washington Post article:
The mood inside the White House in recent days has verged on mania, as Trump increasingly keeps his own counsel and senior aides struggle to determine the gradations between rumor and truth.
Recent Trumpian moves to go it alone:
– announcing tariffs without telling anyone first
– congratulating Putin
– deciding to meet with Kim Jong-un
Long ago Trump announced, via Twitter, that he was banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. That didn’t work out so well for him.
And there is this classic (from an Associated Press report):
Aides to President Donald Trump were in deep talks about how to defuse tensions between Qatar and other Arab nations when the door to the secure room at the White House burst open.
The urgent message: Trump had just tweeted about Qatar.
One adviser read the tweet aloud and with that, the policymakers in midconference call had no other choice but to rework their plans to reflect the president’s tweeted assertion that Qatar, host to some 11,000 U.S. troops, was funding terrorism.
It was an accusation against a close U.S. ally that had never been voiced so publicly and with such indelicacy.
[…] Trump attended a Pentagon briefing last summer and was shown a slide that showed the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile over the past seven decades. Trump saw the highest point on the chart – a half-century ago, the American stockpile was at 32,000 – and told his team “he wanted the U.S. to have that many now.”
That, of course, was absurd, and officials in the room had to explain there are “legal and practical impediments” to such a move. NBC News reported at the time, “Any increase in America’s nuclear arsenal would not only break with decades of U.S. nuclear doctrine but also violate international disarmament treaties signed by every president since Ronald Reagan.”
It was soon after that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron” – or more specifically, a “f***ing moron.”
Do you get the sense the president’s understanding of the arms race hasn’t become any more sophisticated in the months since?
“MS Gov Phil Bryant signs 15-week abortion ban, wants Mississippi to be ‘safest place in America for an unborn child’. MS ranks 50th in health of women, 50th in health of children, 50th in health of infants, 1st in infant mortality. #priorities”
Another Trumpian move to bully a government agency, and to take control of media outlets.:
The top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee says whistleblowers have detailed a plot by the Trump administration to oust the CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) and replace him with someone favored by the White House.
Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) warned in a letter to the BBG […] that that candidate, André Mendes, then plans to dismiss the existing Board of Governors, according to the whistleblowers.
[…] Engel called the alleged plot “our worst nightmare coming true.”
“This action would violate current law and represent what these whistleblowers have described as ‘a coup at the BBG,’ presumably with the aim of pushing the BBG’s journalism toward a viewpoint favorable of (sic) the Trump Administration,” Engel wrote to the BBG. “I view these claims as credible and this scenario as outrageous and unacceptable.” […]
“According to several accounts, Messrs. Mendes and Shapiro have made it clear in recent months their intention to remake the BBG into an agency aimed at promoting the Trump Administration’s agenda, which would constitute an egregious violation of the law requiring a ‘firewall’ between BBG’s management and its independent journalists,” Engel wrote this week. “Such a scheme would represent a shocking abuse of authority and would reveal an effort by this administration to turn the BBG into a propaganda machine.”
Shapiro, a close ally of Steve Bannon, reportedly told colleagues when he was appointed to the agency last summer that his goal was to turn the BBG into a “Bannon legacy” and “root out all Trump disloyalists.” […]
“Special Council is told to find crimes, whether a crime exists or not. I was opposed to the selection of Mueller to be Special Council. I am still opposed to it. I think President Trump was right when he said there never should have been a Special Council appointed because there was no probable cause for believing that there was any crime, collusion or otherwise, or obstruction of justice!” So stated by Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz.
From an earlier (June, 2017) article on the Lawfare blog discussing just how wrong Dershowitz can be:
Alan Dershowitz, in a series of recent op-eds, has taken to arguing in his characteristic take-no-prisoners style that the whole issue of whether President Trump might have obstructed justice is a red herring. Even if the President ordered James Comey to shut down the Flynn investigation and had a corrupt intent for doing so, this would still not amount to the crime of obstruction of justice. The reason, according to Dershowitz, is that the Constitution gives the exclusive power to the President to control all federal law-enforcement investigations—and thus to shut any of them down for any reason the President sees fit. In other words, the President can never commit obstruction of justice by shutting down a criminal investigation or prosecution.
But Dershowitz fails to take into account that the Supreme Court has decisively rejected this view. In Morrison v. Olson (1988), a 7-1 Supreme Court turned back constitutional challenges to Congress’ creation of the Act that gave us the office of the Independent Counsel—and in doing so, dismissed exactly the argument that Dershowitz now seeks to invoke. […]
under the constitutional law that we have, Congress can make it a crime for the President to obstruct justice by acting with a corrupt intent to shut down criminal investigations and prosecutions of the President and his or her top aides. […]
Representative Louie Gohmert of Tennessee, was true to his reputation as the dumbest man in Congress today:
[…]I think Mueller should be fired. He should be. He should never have been appointed, and he should never have accepted. He should be fired.
[…] But because we have so many people that have not bothered to do their homework on who Robert Mueller is and the damage he’s done, especially to the FBI as director, the thousands of years of experience he ran off that might — could have helped guide some of these wayward FBI agents away from the path they took.
[Mueller retired as FBI director in 2013 after 12 years leading the bureau.]
Arthur Jones, a Holocaust denier described as a Nazi by the Illinois Republican Party, won the Republican primary on Tuesday in the state’s Third Congressional District, a heavily Democratic district that includes part of Chicago and its suburbs, according to The Associated Press. […]
The Illinois Republican Party has sought to distance itself from Mr. Jones in recent weeks, blanketing the district with campaign fliers and robocalls urging voters to “stop Illinois Nazis,” according to a robocall script provided by the party. Mr. Jones said he had received three robocalls himself.
86% of the Republican National Committee’s venue rental and catering payments last month were paid to Trump properties.
From the Washington Post:
The Republican National Committee spent roughly $271,000 at President Trump’s private businesses in February, according to documents filed Tuesday evening.
The majority of the RNC’s spending at Trump’s private properties last month paid for venue rental and catering at the Trump National Doral Miami resort in Florida and the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Of about $270,000 spent at both properties, most of the expenses — about $205,000 — were spent at Trump National Doral Miami, Federal Election Commission filings show.
The amounts spent at those two Trump properties comprised 86 percent of the RNC’s February expenses that were categorized specifically as “venue rental and catering.” In December 2017, the RNC spent $3,000 on venue and catering at the Doral property — the only other time it spent money there in the 2017-2018 fundraising cycle.
The purpose of the RNC’s February venue rental expenses at Trump properties was not immediately clear. The RNC did not provide a comment in response to an inquiry Tuesday evening. […]
Now, Republicans have become some of his most reliable customers.
Since Trump won the 2016 election, his businesses have taken in $1.8 million from Republican candidates’ committees, super PACs and the main party committee, according to tax and campaign-finance filings.
Trump’s best customer has been Trump himself. His campaign spent $543,000 at Trump-owned properties in 2017, paying for rent at Trump Tower, for lodging at Trump’s D.C. hotel and for water from Trump Ice.
Trump touted Cambridge Analytica in October of 2016:
A couple of you are a little marginal about this, but I came up with this expression, it’s called “drain the swamp,” right, drain the swamp. And I hated it, I hated it. And it was a speech during the campaign, and it was a term that was actually given to me, usually like to think them up myself, but this was given to me — which bothered me too. I never like that.
But they had this expression “drain the swamp.” And I hated it, I thought it was so hokey. I said,”‘that is the hokiest, give me a break, I am embarrassed to say it.” And I was in Florida where 25,000 people were going wild, and I said, “and we will drain the swamp” — the place went crazy. I couldn’t believe it. And then the next speech I said it again and they went even crazier. “We will drain the swamp… we will drain the swamp,” and every time I said it I got the biggest applause. And after four or five times I said, boy what a great expression, I love saying it, it’s amazing.
“They” in this case are Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica.
Mark Conditt, the 24-year-old white man who terrorized Austin, Texas with a series of bombings, posted screeds against same-sex marriage and against abortion. The posts are mostly from earlier in Conditt’s life, when he was 17, so the content should be taken with a grain of salt.
[…] in a series of blog posts written for a U.S. Government class at Austin Community College, Conditt had written that he was a conservative against same-sex marriage and abortion and in favor of the death penalty.
“First, if a women does not want a baby, or is incapable of taking care of one, she should not participate in activities that were made for that reason,” he wrote. “Second, if we are going to give women free abortions, why not give men free condoms, or the like? Is it not up to the couple to take these preventive measures?”
Conditt also said that homosexuality was not “natural.” “It is not natural to couple male with male and female with female,” he said. “It would be like trying to fit two screws together and to nuts together and then say, “See, it’s natural for them to go together.” […]
Jeff Sessions is kissing up to Trump again. Sessions is promoting the death penalty for drug dealers.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a memo to federal prosecutors on Wednesday, instructing them to pursue the death penalty in drug-related cases, including “dealing in extremely large quantities of drugs,” as part of their response to the opioid epidemic. The guidance comes a day after President Donald Trump touted his proposal of executing drug dealers at a speech in New Hampshire with Sessions at his side. “If we don’t get tough on the drug dealers, we are wasting our time,” Trump said during the speech. “And that toughness includes the death penalty.” […]
The Republican National Committee spent roughly $271,000 at President Trump’s private businesses in February, according to documents filed Tuesday evening.
In one month!
The purpose of the RNC’s February venue rental expenses at Trump properties was not immediately clear. The RNC did not provide a comment in response to an inquiry Tuesday evening.
Wow.
Trump’s best customer has been Trump himself. His campaign spent $543,000 at Trump-owned properties in 2017, paying for rent at Trump Tower,…
“EXCLUSIVE: Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say”: “Nearly a year before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a ‘lack of candor’, McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.”
It seems to me Cambridge University has some serious questions to answer. From the second link @ #393:
Kosinski knew nothing about all this, but he had a bad feeling. “The whole thing started to stink,” he recalls. On further investigation, he discovered that Aleksandr Kogan had secretly registered a company doing business with SCL. According to a December 2015 report in The Guardian and to internal company documents given to Das Magazin, it emerges that SCL learned about Kosinski’s method from Kogan.
Kosinski came to suspect that Kogan’s company might have reproduced the Facebook “Likes”-based Big Five measurement tool in order to sell it to this election-influencing firm. He immediately broke off contact with Kogan and informed the director of the institute, sparking a complicated conflict within the university. The institute was worried about its reputation. Aleksandr Kogan then moved to Singapore, married, and changed his name to Dr. Spectre. Michal Kosinski finished his PhD, got a job offer from Stanford and moved to the US.
From the first link:
Cambridge University said Kogan had correctly sought the permission of the head of the psychology department to do the work with St Petersburg.
“It was understood that this work and any associated grants would be in a private capacity, separate to his work at the university,” it said in a statement.
I called President Putin of Russia to congratulate him on his election victory (in past, Obama called him also). The Fake News Media is crazed because they wanted me to excoriate him. They are wrong! Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing, not a bad thing…….
…..They can help solve problems with North Korea, Syria, Ukraine, ISIS, Iran and even the coming Arms Race. Bush tried to get along, but didn’t have the “smarts.” Obama and Clinton tried, but didn’t have the energy or chemistry (remember RESET). PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH!
Matthew Miller: “Saying Russia can help solve problems with Ukraine is on par with Trump’s proposal for a joint cybersecurity unit with Russia.”
Is the light starting to dawn, Republicans? This is his foreign policy: not acting in the interests of the US, but as an asset for Putin. By any means necessary: lying, firing critics of the Kremlin, betraying and smearing our allies, publicly trashing and sabotaging intelligence and law enforcement agencies trying to hold Putin to account and guard against attacks, ignoring the plain advice of his top security and diplomatic aides, slow-walking and attempting to remove sanctions, cheering autocracy, ignoring chemical attacks and extrajudicial murders in allied countries, undermining the statements and policies of US agencies, anything. Appeasing Putin and acting on his regime’s behalf is a top priority and a necessity.
If Britain hadn’t voted to leave the EU, and Trump hadn’t won the US election, it’s unlikely anyone outside Nigeria would have given a second thought to what went on during its presidential election campaign three years ago.
But the 20/20 vision of hindsight casts a very different light on the events of early 2015, and a campaign that now seems to eerily prefigure what happened in the US a year later. Many of the same characters, some of the same tactics.
At the heart of it all – data analytics company, SCL – the parent company of Cambridge Analytica. It had been hired by a rich Nigerian who supported the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan.
“It was the kind of campaign that was our bread and butter,” says one ex-employee. “We’re employed by a billionaire who’s panicking at the idea of a change of government and who wants to spend big to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
This was a standard variation on what SCL had done around the world for 30 years – this time, with a twist. Weaponising information to harm an opponent was standard methodology.
It was a methodology honed and developed in the company’s defence and military work – the fifth dimension of warfare, defined by the US military as “information operations”.
What was new, or at least new to those employees who have now spoken out, was bringing these techniques to the company’s election work.
Seven individuals with close knowledge of the Nigeria campaign have described how Cambridge Analytica worked with people they believed were Israeli computer hackers.
The sources – who spoke to the Observer over many months – said the company was looking for “kompromat” on Muhammadu Buhari – at the time, leader of the opposition.
They said the hackers offered Cambridge Analytica access to private information about Buhari.
Their testimony paints an extraordinary picture of how far a western company would contemplate going in an effort to undermine the democratic process in a country that already struggles to provide free and fair elections.
…
That work seems to have come about through Brittany Kaiser, a senior director at Cambridge Analytica, who would go on to play a public role at the launch of Nigel Farage’s Leave.eu campaign, and a senior strategist on the Trump campaign.
…
There are multiple wider political questions about what went on in the Nigerian election of 2015 and the role western powers played. Whether western political campaigners taking lucrative foreign contracts are contributing to the democratic framework of developing countries – or helping to destroy them. If they’re experimenting with methods and techniques that they later re-import back to our more developed democracies.
Christopher Wylie, the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower who spoke to the Observer, called it “post-colonial blowback”.
“The west found a way of firehosing disinformation into weak and vulnerable democracies. And now this has been turned back on us. This really is about our chickens coming home to roost.”
Another said: “Everything the company did after the Mercers got involved was about refining a set of techniques that they would go on to use in the US elections. These campaigns in other countries were experiments. They worked out how to harvest data and weaponise it. And they got steadily better at it.”
And what comes across most strongly, the sources say, is how little thought, if any, the senior directors in London had given to their employees and colleagues who became caught up in the activities, many of whom were in their early to mid-20s….
So far, subsequent information seems to match what Nix said to the undercover investigators.
So we now have reports about what SCL did in St. Kitts and Nevis and in Nigeria. I noticed a mention of Brazil in the undercover video – hope more will be revealed about that.
Until he was stripped of his top-secret security clearance in February, presidential adviser Jared Kushner was known around the White House as one of the most voracious readers of the President’s Daily Brief, a highly classified rundown of the latest intelligence intended only for the president and his closest advisers.
Kushner, who had been tasked with bringing about a deal between Israel and Palestine, was particularly engaged by information about the Middle East, according to a former White House official and a former U.S. intelligence professional.
In June, Saudi prince Mohammed bin Salman ousted his cousin, then-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, and took his place as next in line to the throne, upending the established line of succession. In the months that followed, the President’s Daily Brief contained information on Saudi Arabia’s evolving political situation, including a handful of names of royal family members opposed to the crown prince’s power grab, according to the former White House official and two U.S. government officials with knowledge of the report. Like many others interviewed for this story, they declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about sensitive matters to the press.
In late October, Jared Kushner made an unannounced trip to Riyadh, catching some intelligence officials off guard. “The two princes are said to have stayed up until nearly 4 a.m. several nights, swapping stories and planning strategy,” the Washington Post’s David Ignatius reported at the time.
What exactly Kushner and the Saudi royal talked about in Riyadh may be known only to them, but after the meeting, Crown Prince Mohammed told confidants that Kushner had discussed the names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince, according to three sources who have been in contact with members of the Saudi and Emirati royal families since the crackdown. Kushner, through his attorney’s spokesperson, denies having done so.
…
One of the people MBS told about the discussion with Kushner was UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, according to a source who talks frequently to confidants of the Saudi and Emirati rulers. MBS bragged to the Emirati crown prince and others that Kushner was “in his pocket,” the source told The Intercept.
…
On November 6, two days after the detentions in the Ritz began, Trump took to Twitter to defend the crackdown:…
…
In the months that followed, the arrestees were coerced into signing over billions in personal assets to the Saudi government. In December, the London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported that Maj. Gen. Ali al-Qahtani had been tortured to death in the Ritz. Qahtani’s body showed signs of mistreatment, including a neck that was “twisted unnaturally as though it had been broken,” bruises, and “burn marks that appeared to be from electric shocks,” the New York Times reported earlier this month.
…
MBS is in Washington this week. On Tuesday, he was warmly received by Trump, who told reporters that the U.S.-Saudi relationship is “probably the strongest it’s ever been.”
“On January 17, 2015, leaked health records of (now) President Buhari were published in Nigeria showing he was suffering prostrate [sic] cancer. Was it hacked by Israelis working with Cambridge Analytica?”
A cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation worked for more than a year to turn a top Trump fund-raiser into an instrument of influence at the White House for the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to interviews and previously undisclosed documents.
Hundreds of pages of correspondence between the two men reveal an active effort to cultivate President Trump on behalf of the two oil-rich Arab monarchies, both close American allies.
High on the agenda of the two men — George Nader, a political adviser to the de facto ruler of the U.A.E.; and Elliott Broidy, the deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee — was pushing the White House to remove Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, backing confrontational approaches to Iran and Qatar and repeatedly pressing the president to meet privately outside the White House with the leader of U.A.E.
Mr. Tillerson was fired last week, and the president has adopted tough approaches toward both Iran and Qatar.
Mr. Nader tempted the fund-raiser, Mr. Broidy, with the prospect of more than $1 billion in contracts for his private security company, Circinus, and he helped deliver deals worth more than $200 billion with the United Arab Emirates. He also flattered Mr. Broidy about “how well you handle Chairman,” a reference to Mr. Trump, and repeated to his well-connected friend that he told the effective rulers of both Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. about “the Pivotal Indispensable Magical Role you are playing to help them.”
Mr. Nader’s cultivation of Mr. Broidy, laid out in documents provided to The New York Times, provides a case study in the way two Persian Gulf monarchies have sought to gain influence inside the Trump White House. Mr. Nader has been granted immunity in a deal for his cooperation with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to people familiar with the matter, and his relationship with Mr. Broidy may also offer clues to the direction of that inquiry.
…
The documents contain evidence not previously reported that Mr. Nader also held himself out as intermediary for Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who met with Mr. Trump on Tuesday in the Oval Office at the beginning of a tour of the United States to meet with political and business leaders.
…
The Saudis and Emiratis have had particularly warm relations with the Trump administration. Mr. Trump at times has appeared to side with the Arab monarchies against his own cabinet secretaries — including in the bitter regional dispute against neighboring Qatar. Also in concert with the Saudis and Emiratis, Mr. Trump has taken a far more hawkish stance toward Iran than either his cabinet or his predecessor, threatening to “rip up” the Iran nuclear deal brokered by President Barack Obama….
If anyone would know how to groom someone, it would be Nader.
Chris Wylie: “Accepting invitation to testify before US House Intelligence Committee, US House Judiciary Committee & UK Parliament Digital Committee. It’s time for our democratic institutions to take control.”
Conor Lamb: “Just got off the phone with my opponent, @RickSaccone4PA, who congratulated me & graciously conceded last Tuesday’s election. I congratulate Mr. Saccone for a close, hard-fought race & wish him the best. Ready to be sworn in & get to work for the people of #PA18.”
President Trump’s senior advisers were thrown when he told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday that he expected to meet with him soon, as briefings before the call to Moscow included no mention of a possible meeting, and aides have not been instructed to prepare for one, senior administration officials said.
Although Trump told reporters that “probably, we’ll be seeing President Putin in the not-too-distant future,” several officials said there are no plans for the two even to be in the same country until November, when both are expected to attend a Group of 20 summit in Argentina.
…
Senior White House officials have previously opposed a bilateral meeting with the Russian president.
Hours before the White House even acknowledged Trump had spoken to Putin, the Kremlin put its own spin on the call, saying that Trump had called to congratulate Putin and that “special attention was paid to making progress on the question of holding a possible meeting at the highest level.”
The Russian statement forced the hand of the White House, where advisers had disagreed on whether to include Trump’s congratulations in the official U.S. account, two people familiar with the conversation said. When the official White House readout of the call emerged several hours later, it said Trump congratulated Putin but made no mention of a discussion of a meeting….
What the hell is this?:
Advocates of closer ties between the United States and Russia also defended Trump’s decision to dictate his own meeting with the Russian leader as well within his prerogative.
“The president is signaling that he is going to take center spotlight as diplomat in chief,” said Matt Rojansky, a Russia scholar at the Wilson Center. “I can imagine he does not want to wait to be directed or handled by the bureaucracy on even these extremely difficult negotiations, because he has spent his adult life negotiating deals. It might mean he gets out ahead of his advisers, but their job is to catch up, and they will.”
I’m an atheist. I’m not only an atheist – I’m anti-faith and a vocal opponent of the Catholic Church. That said, I’ve also argued several times over the past few years about the good fortune that Francis is the Pope, because things could be very different. White evangelicals in the US (and increasingly evangelicals in Latin America) are a far-Right political force. The Orthodox Church in Russia is a far-Right political force. There’s a powerful rightwing Catholic contingent in the US and Europe. There could easily have been another Pius XII. But Francis is not that, and the rightwing forces within the church despise him for it. This is a report about one priest in Poland, who’s been censured, and it shouldn’t be overblown:
A Catholic priest from Poland is facing rebuke after calling Pope Francis a “foreign body” in the church and implying the Pope should pass away soon if his views on refugees and non-Christian beliefs don’t change.
“I pray for wisdom for the pope, for his heart to open up to the Holy Spirit. And if he does not do that, I pray for his quick departure to the House of the Father,” Father Edward Staniek said during a homily in Krakow last month, according to an English transcription of his words.
“I can always ask God for a happy death for him, because a happy death is a great grace,” he said.
During the homily, the prominent priest and theologian also took issue with some of the Pope’s more liberal ideas on immigration, divorce and Islam.
Of Muslims, Staniek said there is “no way to dialogue with them.”
“In the name of mercy, [Pope Francis] calls parishes and dioceses to open the door for the followers of Islam,” he said during his homily. “As a religion, they are hostile to the Gospel and the Church. They murdered millions in religious wars…We can show mercy to those Muslim believers who are dying of hunger or thirst. The doors of the diocese and the parish may be open only to believers in Jesus Christ.”
Staniek’s words were censured by the Archbishop of Krakow, Marek Jedraszewski….
Still, this is a church representative wishing death on the Pope because he’s not hateful enough. He represents bishops in the US and many rightwing Christians around the world. They have less loyalty to a church than they do to a rightwing ideology and to political power.
New York City’s buildings regulator launched investigations at more than a dozen Kushner Cos. properties Wednesday following an Associated Press report that the real estate developer routinely filed false paperwork claiming it had zero rent-regulated tenants in its buildings across the city.
The Department of Buildings is investigating possible illegal activity involving applications signed by Kushner Cos. officials seeking permission to begin construction work at 13 of the developer’s buildings, according to public records maintained by the regulator. The AP reported Sunday that Kushner Cos. stated in more than 80 of those permit applications that it had zero rent-regulated tenants in its buildings when it, in fact, had hundreds….
“And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
‘Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a pocket man…”
Akira MacKenziesays
Whatever the fuck happened to “Godless Communism?” I can’t swing a dead cat in a supposedly Left-leaning forum and not hit a dozen worshippers of Proto-hippie Jesus who get all offended by my atheism.
Explain to me again why these superstitious, magical-thinking, sub-human shits are supposed to be my “allies?”
KGsays
Cambridge Analytica has personal links to the UK Conservative Party. How substantial these are or were, what the previous government contracts with SCL (the parent company) were, and whether there are any at present (May carefully said she “wasn’t aware” of any – has she asked?)remain to be seen.
Federal prosecutors have dropped charges against 11 of 15 members of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s security team who were accused in connection with the beating of protesters during their visit to Washington last year, the latest twist in a case that caused a diplomatic rift between the U.S. and Turkey.
The decision by the U.S. to prosecute the 15 men added to political strains as the Trump administration was trying to reset relations with Turkey, a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State. The move to dismiss charges against most of them stands to ease one source of tension between Washington and Ankara.
Prosecutors first asked a judge in November to dismiss charges against four members of Mr. Erdogan’s security detail. Then they dropped charges against seven others on Feb. 14, the day before Secretary of State Rex Tillerson flew to Ankara for a meeting with Mr. Erdogan meant to ease tensions. Among those freed of legal jeopardy immediately before the high-level meeting was the head of Mr. Erdogan’s security team.
U.S. officials said that no one pressured prosecutors to drop any of the charges for political reasons. Instead, the decisions were the result of investigators misidentifying some of the suspects and failing to develop enough evidence against others, according to the U.S. officials and an attorney who provided some free legal advice to defendants in the case.
Mr. Tillerson, in his private talks with Turkish leaders, pointed to the decisions to drop charges—which hadn’t been publicized or announced—as an example of how the U.S. had addressed Mr. Erdogan’s grievances, according to administration officials familiar with the talks….
It’s also telling that the WSJ reporters reached out to “an attorney who provided some free legal advice to defendants in the case” and “an attorney and co-chairman of the Turkish-American group that organized pro-Turkey demonstrators who clashed with anti-Erdogan protesters,” but couldn’t be bothered to talk to a single victim or legislator who called attention to the attack.
And Turkey is not a fucking “key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State.” The Kurds are a key US ally in the fight against ISIS, and Erdogan is both helping ISIS and attacking the Kurds.
“BREAKING: This afternoon the parliament of Jersey began debates on whether to pass a Magnitsky Act in Jersey, which would mirror the U.K. Magnitsky Act….
If Jersey goes through with this and enacts a Magnitsky Act, this would be a tectonic negative shift in the fortunes of Russian human rights violators because they hold significant assets in Jersey.”
WaPo: “John Dowd, a personal attorney for President Trump handling the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, has resigned, according to three people familiar with the decision.
Dowd’s resignation came several days after Trump added Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who was pushing an aggressive new strategy, to his team.”
SC @419 and 421, it’s as if Michael Flynn was still in charge.
tomh @424, I didn’t think it was possible, but Trump is downgrading an already low-quality legal team. It will be interesting to see how that works out for him.
From Steve Benen, a summary of Trump’s legal team:
[…] Trump recently hired Joe diGenova for his legal defense – again without telling anyone – because the president liked what the far-right conspiracy theorist said on television. Trump has already reportedly turned to Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro for legal guidance.
The president still has Ty Cobb – despite his reported clashes with the White House counsel’s office – who’s perhaps best known for his false predictions about the end of the investigation and his candid remarks about the probe at an outdoor table at a restaurant outside the New York Times’ D.C. bureau. (Cobb, who may soon be fired, also has some unfortunate email habits.)
Of course, there’s also Jay Sekulow, who has no business even trying to do this kind of work – he led TV preacher Pat Robertson’s legal group, where he worked on issues like school prayer – and who’s embarrassed himself on national television while talking about the controversy.
It’s against this backdrop that competent attorneys have turned the president down.
Not to put too fine a point on this, but Trump is facing a serious scandal of historic significance, which may very well bring his presidency to a premature end. He needs the best legal defense possible.
Instead, Trump’s efforts to assemble a capable legal defense team have become one of the biggest debacles of his presidency – and given the scope of his failures, that’s no small feat.
A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, “I can grab a woman anywhere, and she likes it.” They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said “no.” I said, “If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.”
I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life. I’m a pretty [darn] good athlete. Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.
Trump responded:
[…] Trump took a jab at Joe Biden on Thursday, blasting the former vice president on Twitter as “weak, both mentally and physically” and vowing that if they actually fought he “would go down fast and hard, crying all the way.”
In a scathing early-morning tweet, Trump responded to earlier insults from Biden and wrote that “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy.”
Trump is 71 years old. Biden is 75 years old, and in better shape than Trump. Still, I don’t think a fist fight between these two is a good idea. I understand Biden’s impulse, but, as Steve Benen said:
[…] It’s a case study in privilege. Trump apparently doesn’t think twice about his antics, boasting not only about being able to beat up rivals, but also about his ability to beat up mad gunmen. It was just last month when the president said, in reference to the mass shooting in Parkland, “I really believe I’d run in there – even if I didn’t have a weapon.”
Barack Obama never had the luxury of saying nonsense like this.
This piece about Kogan/Spectre’s longstanding relationship with Facebook, “Facebook gave data about 57bn friendships to academic,” is very interesting. He conducted academic research jointly with FB, and one of his colleagues from the department who became his partner in GSR (the company that worked with CA) now works for FB. The behavior of the department in this scandal seems bizarre and unethical. Part of the explanation could be that they’ve long been getting money from FB.
A University of Cambridge press release on the study’s publication noted that the paper was “the first output of ongoing research collaborations between Spectre’s lab in Cambridge and Facebook”. Facebook did not respond to queries about whether any other collaborations occurred.
Lynna @ #427, this whole story is making me angry. They’ve had long discussions about it on CNN and MSNBC today, and no coverage at all of the reports @ #401 or #404. Like you, I’m sure Biden meant well, but all he’s doing is repeating a stupid thing he said in the past, which helps Trump create another distraction. The Me Too movement is about women speaking out, changing the culture around sexual harassment and assault, and changing the systems, policies, and institutions that protect harassers and rapists and silence women. The last thing anyone needs is for the conversation to be about men threatening to beat up other men who hurt women. FFS.
“Pa. Supreme Court Chief Justice to impeachment lawmakers: ‘Threats of impeachment directed against Justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government’.”
It’s getting hard to say which state Republicans are most evil. NC, WI, AL, PA,… – all striving for the title.
SC @430, agreed. I’m glad you noted that Biden was referencing something he said in the past. I didn’t make that clear. Also, Biden did say, “I shouldn’t have said that.” Still, no excuse.
Trump telling Biden not to threaten people while he blatantly threatened Biden is just too much. Trump always threatens people. That’s how he operates. Let’s not stoop to Trump’s level.
And, yes, that story is taking up too much oxygen.
@431, so glad to hear that Bailey survived the nerve agent attack.
The stock market is headed down, down, down. Currently over 600 points down. This is in response to Trump signing new China tariffs.
Stocks are falling sharply and bond prices are climbing after the Trump administration moved to place tariffs on some goods imported from China and restrict Chinese investment. The Chinese government said it will defend itself and investors fear that trade tensions will spike between the world’s largest economies. Industrial and technology companies took some of the worst losses while banks dipped along with interest rates. Stock indexes in Europe also took sharp losses. […]
Earlier this month the Trump administration ordered tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, and stocks dropped as investors worried about the possibility of tougher restrictions on international trade and smaller profits for corporations. […]
The House easily approved a bipartisan $1.3 trillion spending bill Thursday that pours huge sums into Pentagon programs and domestic initiatives ranging from building roads to combatting the nation’s opioid abuse crisis, but left Congress in stalemate over shielding young Dreamer immigrants from deportation and curbing surging health insurance premiums.
The vote was 256-167, a one-sided tally that underscored the popularity of a budget deal among party leaders that provided enough money to address many of both sides’ priorities. […]
The next step was Senate passage, which was assured.
But it was possible some Republican senators critical of the bill’s spending could delay its approval until after midnight Friday night. If that occurred, that would prompt the year’s third federal shutdown, an event that was sure to be brief but would still embarrass a GOP that controls the White House and Congress.
The White House said President Donald Trump supported the legislation, even though he tweeted Wednesday that he “had to waste money on Dem giveaways” on domestic programs to win increases for the military.
Congressional Republicans focused on the bill’s defense increases.
“Vote yes for our military. Vote yes for the safety and the security of this country,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
Democrats touted spending boosts on biomedical research, child care and infrastructure projects. And Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., attributed part of the House’s hasty work on the measure to GOP fears of being stuck in Washington on Saturday, when huge throngs of students and others are expected to demonstrate in support of gun curbs.
“They just don’t want to be around when the young people come to town,” Pelosi said. […]
I like Nancy Pelosi’s comment. I think she is calling it like it is.
A few of the particulars:
[…] Trump is now poised to win $1.6 billion for barriers along the border, but none of it for the new prototypes he recently visited in California. Less than half the nearly 95 miles of border construction, including levees along the Rio Grande in Texas, would be for new barriers, with the rest for repair of existing segments.
In one win for immigrant advocates, negotiators rejected Trump’s plans to hire hundreds of new Border Patrol and immigration enforcement agents.
Both parties touted $4.6 billion in total funding to fight the nation’s opioid addiction epidemic, a $3 billion increase. More than $2 billion would go to strengthen school safety through grants for training, security measures and treatment for the mentally ill. Medical research at the National Institutes of Health, a longstanding bipartisan priority, would receive a record $3 billion increase to $37 billion. Funding was also included for election security ahead of the 2018 midterms.
Child care and development block grants would receive a huge $2.4 billion increase to $5.2 billion. And an Obama-era transportation grant program known as TIGER would see its budget tripled to $1.5 billion. Head Start for preschoolers would get a $610 million boost, while an additional $2.4 billion would go for child care grants.
I do wonder in agencies headed by Trump appointees will mange to spend money allotted for election security effectively and promptly.
There are a handful of good journalists there [at Fox News], but I think they are lost in what is a complete propaganda machine. The idea that it’s a news channel, I think, is really not the case at all.
We are likely to see two more special elections soon. A Wisconsin judge has ruled that Governor Scott Walker has to hold elections to fill two GOP seats that were recently vacated. Scott was refusing to hold those elections, probably out of fear that Democrats would flip them.
[…] A national Democratic group led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder filed the lawsuit on behalf of voters who argued they were disenfranchised by Walker’s decision not to call elections to fill the vacancies that occurred on Dec. 29.
Attorneys for Holder’s groups, the National Redistricting Foundation, argued that Walker has a legal obligation to call special elections as soon as possible. Democrats said the governor is afraid Democrats will win the seats, but Walker contends the lawsuit is a partisan, special interest effort to waste taxpayers’ money and he’s under no legal obligation to hold the elections.
Dane County Circuit Judge Josann Reynolds required Walker to issue the order calling special elections no later than March 29. Her decision was expected to be appealed.
Two voters who live in the affected districts testified they were angry and insulted they didn’t have a lawmaker to contact with their concerns.
“It’s one thing it’s vacant, it’s another thing they’re not going to fill it,” said Jennifer Meyer, who lives in the town of Scott. “We have nobody representing the interests of our district in the state Senate right now and that upsets me.” […]
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey commented on Jared Kushner’s handling of U.S. foreign policy:
[…] Putting Jared Kushner, a 30-something person with no foreign policy or defense policy experience as a leading representative of the United States is simply outrageous. The officers of our government, under the Constitution, have to get confirmed by the Senate, whether they’re ambassadors or generals or senior officials of the government.
Reading out the State Department and having one-on-one contact between Jared Kushner, by phone and in person, [with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman] is a huge threat to a rational policymaking process. […]
It has just no precedent, in my view, in American government in modern times.
The other thing is, on foreign policy contacts, if you’re in Saudi Arabia, you never see a senior official without the U.S. ambassador present. You always want a notetaker there. This kind of secretive, one-on-one, the son-in-law– It sounds like some third-world country.
This is the personalization of a family business dealing with U.S. policy. […]
[…] Trump has nominated an extremist to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, one Professor William G. Otis of Georgetown Law, […] If confirmed, Otis would have a lot—a lot—of potential to thwart sentencing reform and even sabotage the Sentencing Commission, which is integral to reform.
The U.S. Sentencing Commission, a bipartisan, independent agency located in the judicial branch of government, was created by Congress in 1984 to reduce sentencing disparities and promote transparency and proportionality in sentencing.
The Commission collects, analyzes, and distributes a broad array of information on federal sentencing practices. The Commission also continuously establishes and amends sentencing guidelines for the judicial branch and assists the other branches in developing effective and efficient crime policy. Learn the basics of federal sentencing.
The glaring issue with Otis’s nomination: He opposes the Commission’s existence and mission.
[…] in 2011, [Otis] called for abolishing the Sentencing Commission altogether, declaring that its guidelines “favor the criminal” and labeling it “an overfed lemur” that costs too much and no longer has the respect of the judiciary. […]
Sentencing reform, he said, is “part of our country’s recent pattern of decline and retreat, of settling for lower standards in the name of a toxic brand of equality.” […]
Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard equality called “toxic.”
Beyond his facially faulty positions on the commission and reform, Otis seems immune to reasoned analysis and devoid of concern for the social effects of higher rates of incarceration.
In blog posts, he has written that he believes the harsh crime policies and War on Drugs prosecutions of the 1980s and 1990s contributed to the precipitous crime rate drop in subsequent decades.
“Our whole sentencing system that started in the Reagan-Bush era, the system of guidelines and mandatory minimums has been a big success,” he said. “If one judges the success of the criminal justice system by the crime rate rather than the incarceration rate, under the system we’ve had and that Jeff Sessions is now restoring, there has been a tremendous fall-off in crime.”
Most researchers who have studied the drop in crime that began in 1991 agree that locking up more people played some role — but at a high cost in dollars, damaged communities and racial inequity. People of color are disproportionately represented in the nation’s jails and prisons.
[…] Otis wrote: “When Fifth Circuit Judge Edith Jones said at a University of Pennsylvania Law School talk that blacks and Hispanics are more violent than whites, a consortium of civil rights organizations filed a complaint. The complaint calls for stern discipline, on the grounds that the remarks were ‘discriminatory and biased.’ ”
He added: “So far as I have been able to discover, it makes no mention of the fact that they’re true.” […]
Senior White House official tells Fox News that while NSC’s Putin call briefing memo said “DO NOT CONGRATULATE”, Donald Trump likely didn’t see the memo as his pre-call briefing was by phone – not in person – and ‘do not congratulate’ was not mentioned in the phone briefing.
From former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke:
JOE BIDEN: “I’VE BEEN IN A LOT OF LOCKER ROOMS IN MY LIFE.”
Really Joe? Please tell us why and what you were doing hanging around all those locker rooms, Joe? Taking in the sights? Did the soap keep falling out of your hands Joe? Huh? Tell us Joe. #MAGA
Leave it to David Clarke to find an opportunity to insinuate that Joe Biden is gay.
[…]
• He participated in what an acquaintance described to BuzzFeed as a Christian survivalist youth group for home-schooled children whose members carried knives and practiced archery and shooting. The group was reputedly called “Righteous Invasion of Truth,” whose acronym is RIOT.
• He stated in a blog post that gay marriage should be illegal because homosexuality, like bestiality and pedophilia, is “not natural.” Wrote Conditt: “I do not believe it is proper to pass laws stating that homosexuals have ‘rights.’” […]
• The first two individuals targeted by his bombs were black—39-year-old Anthony Stephan House and 17-year-old Draylen Mason. (Both died.)
Link
Despite that evidence, the Austin police chief said:
I know everybody is interested in a motive and understanding why. And we’re never going to be able to put a ration behind these acts. He does not at all mention anything about terrorism nor does he mention anything about hate. But instead, it is the outcry of a very challenged young man, talking about challenges in his personal life that led him to this point.
SC @446. Awww, cute. And a good way to put things into perspective.
In other news, here are a few more details related to Mark Conditt’s background:
[…] The Austin Stone Community Church, which Conditt and Jensen reportedly attended, is a multi-campus fundamentalist megachurch featuring lots of sermons about sexual morality, arguing that only heterosexual married people should have sex, homosexuality is wrong and abortion is evil. One sermon from the period when Jensen said he and Conditt had attended Austin Stone, for instance, features the preacher railing against women who read “Fifty Shades of Grey,” comparing them to the “cows of Bashan” — a Biblical reference signifying beautiful, pampered possessions — and telling them that marriage “is not for your happiness.” […]
What I can say as someone who moved to Austin a few weeks before her 18th birthday and lived there for 14 years, is that this feels like terrorism to the community in that city, and not just because a bombing campaign is inherently terrifying. No, this cuts right to the heart of the culture-war struggle that’s always acutely felt in a place frequently described as “The People’s Republic of Austin” — in loving tones by many who live there, and more derisively by conservative Texans who live outside it.
Even the state’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, has sneered at the city with this term, saying, “As you’re driving, you guys know this, as you leave Austin and start heading up north you start feeling different, and once you cross the Travis County line, it starts smelling different. And you know what that fragrance is? Freedom. It’s the smell of freedom that does not exist in Austin, Texas.” […]
Austin has long been an escape route from oppression for many Texans who grew up, as I did, in small towns and stiflingly conservative atmospheres. […] a town that was queer-friendly, feminist, progressive and sometimes famously weird, especially by Texas standards. A town where the feminist sex shop kept its doors open, even though the cops kept raiding it for breaking state laws against selling dildos.
That may all sound quaint now: Blue oases in red states are a well-known phenomenon. Many states have one, often built around a major university, as Austin was built around the University of Texas. But Austin, I think it’s fair to say, has been a haven for freaks seeking freedom a lot longer than most of those places. It’s where Janis Joplin finally broke free of her background, more than 50 years ago. It’s the place people have long described as the San Francisco of the South.
Austin has its problems, to be clear. The city’s laid-back stoner attitude caused most of us to treat Alex Jones as an entertaining weirdo instead of the monster that he is, which made it easier for him to build his conspiracy theory empire.
Austin’s racial segregation is hair-raisingly bad, and the white liberal population remains largely indifferent to fixing the problem. Housing prices are soaring, and bad urban planning has led to traffic problems that can seem utterly unfixable. […]
[…] Perhaps the most telling revelation from the recent reporting—aside from the U.K.’s Channel 4 catching Alexander Nix on camera explaining how his company could supply beautiful Ukrainian women to entrap politicians—is that Cambridge Analytica is essentially a shell company created by the British firm Strategic Communications Laboratories. During the 2016 campaign, according to Cadwalladr, C.A. was staffed primarily by non-U.S. citizens, in possible violation of American campaign-finance laws. This included the contractors the firm brought to Austin, Texas, to work with Trump’s digital team there.
“We were really speaking directly to the voters in a number of states,” one former C.A. employee, who worked with a number of non-U.S. citizens or green-card holders, told the Guardian. Cadwalladr writes, “It is understood that some were working on tourist visas. Another ex-employee claimed that they had been provided with letters to give to US border control officials where needed, stating that they would not be working” in the United States. And, she points out, Bannon, Nix, and Rebekah Mercer (Robert’s daughter) knew that this was illegal. Their counsel, who happened to work at Rudolph Giuliani’s law firm, let them know in a memo written in July, 2014.
These Cambridge Analytica contractors worked with Trump’s digital team, headed by Brad Parscale and Jared Kushner. Alongside all of them were Facebook employees who were embedded with the Trump campaign to help them use Facebook’s various tools most effectively—including the so-called “dark posts,” used to dissuade African-Americans from showing up to vote.
Did any of them know that the data that Cambridge Analytica was using to target voters, craft ads and blog posts, and determine Trump’s travel schedule came from millions of American Facebook members whose data had been taken without consent and sold for a million dollars—what Cadwalladr is calling a massive data “breach”? Maybe, or maybe not—and it hardly matters.
For more than a year, Cadwalladr has done yeoman work, reporting on the nihilism of Bannon and the Mercers, the cravenness of Nix, and connecting the dots between them and Trump and Facebook. But those millions of Facebook profiles do not in fact constitute a breach: they were obtained legally. Nobody hacked Facebook—nor would they have had to—because the business model of Facebook is predicated on mining the personal details of its two billion users.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg could only chalk the whole saga up to “a breach of trust between Kogan, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.” The company is aided in maintaining this position by privacy policies that are as obscure as they are lax. As a consequence, Facebook created the conditions for millions of Americans to become unwitting cogs in the effort to get Trump elected. […]
The State Department has approved nearly $1 billion in new arms sales for Saudi Arabia, notifying Congress of the sale the same week the kingdom’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman visited Washington.
The proposed deals to the country include a $670 million sale for more than 6,600 TOW 2B missiles, and a $300 million sale for spare vehicle parts for the Royal Saudi Land Forces Ordnance Corps. […]
Saudi Arabia is the largest buyer of American-made weapons, and the United States sees the country as an ally in the fight against al Qaeda and the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. There have been controversies over the last year, however, in providing the country with weapons.
Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) vowed last June to stop arms sales to Persian Gulf states after Saudi Arabia led a group of nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in cutting diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar.
[…] Corker in February lifted his hold on weapons sales to the countries, and said at the time that “unfortunately, there still isn’t a clear path to resolving the rift.”
There is also criticism over providing the Saudis with weapons and logistics support in Yemen’s three-year civil war against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. […]
Drezner: “If you want to understand why I’m sounding so down on Bolton, it’s because I read ‘Surrender Is Not An Option’, his book on his time in the Bush administration. The pathologies on display in that text were… disturbing.”
John Bolton’s appointment as national security adviser—a post that requires no Senate confirmation—puts the United States on a path to war. And it’s fair to say President Trump wants us on that path.
After all, Trump gave him the job after the two held several conversations (despite White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s orders barring Bolton from the building). And there was this remark that Trump made after firing Rex Tillerson and nominating the more hawkish Mike Pompeo to take his place: “We’re getting very close to having the Cabinet and other things I want.”
Bolton has repeatedly called for launching a first strike on North Korea, scuttling the nuclear arms deal with Iran, and then bombing that country too. He says and writes these things not as part of some clever “madman theory” to bring Kim Jong-un and the mullahs of Tehran to the bargaining table, but rather because he simply wants to destroy them and America’s other enemies too.
His agenda is not “peace through strength,” the motto of more conventional Republican hawks that Trump included in a tweet just yesterday, but rather regime-change through war. He is a neocon without the moral fervor of some who wear that label—i.e., he is keen to topple oppressive regimes not in order to spread democracy but rather to expand American power.
…
More than that, he was hostile to the idea of international law, having once declared, “It is a big mistake for us to grant any validity to international law even when it may seem in our short-term interest to do so—because over the long term, the goal of those who think that international law really means anything are those who want to constrain the United States.”…
Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for providing WikiLeaks with stolen emails from the Democratic National Committee, was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU), The Daily Beast has learned. It’s an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.
That forensic determination has substantial implications for the criminal probe into potential collusion between President Donald Trump and Russia. The Daily Beast has learned that the special counsel in that investigation, Robert Mueller, has taken over the probe into Guccifer and brought the FBI agents who worked to track the persona onto his team.
…
Mueller’s office declined to comment for this story. But the attribution of Guccifer 2.0 as an officer of Russia’s largest foreign intelligence agency would cross the Kremlin threshold—and move the investigation closer to Trump himself.
…
But on one occasion, The Daily Beast has learned, Guccifer failed to activate the VPN client before logging on. As a result, he left a real, Moscow-based Internet Protocol address in the server logs of an American social media company, according to a source familiar with the government’s Guccifer investigation. Twitter and WordPress were Guccifer 2.0’s favored outlets. Neither company would comment for this story, and Guccifer did not respond to a direct message on Twitter.
Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow. (The Daily Beast’s sources did not disclose which particular officer worked as Guccifer.)…
Bolton is indeed hungry for war. He also spoke to Russians about gun rights and tried to push NRA propaganda into Russia.
What’s scary about Bolton is that he is smarter than Trump, and he writes well. He uses his relatively greater intelligence and his erudition (such as it is) to lead people like Trump into war. Bolton channels his intelligence into support for a very narrow, über conservative view of the world.
I think the Iran nuclear deal will be killed. Bolton will kill it. I think war with Iran is likely.
Bolton will also likely piggyback on existing trumpian love for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to put further pressure on Qatar and Yemen. Same for Iran. Leaders in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have likened the Ayotallah of Iran to Hitler. Sounds like preparation/excuses for more war in the Middle East to me.
All the best people.
Just last week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders dissed the mainstream press for reports that McMaster may be on the way out. “No changes,” she said. She lied.
Conclusion, McMaster spoke too much truth so Trump ousted him. Team Trump didn’t even wait until after the meeting with North Korea. They didn’t wait until they could find a “soft landing” for McMaster, (like a 3- or 4-star general post that would not require him to retire from the military). Team Trump is reckless.
They did succeed in bumping Stormy Daniels off the front page.
Hj Hornbecksays
Lynna, OM: They did succeed in bumping Stormy Daniels off the front page. CNN: Hold my beer.
McDougal says her affair with Trump began just months after Melania gave birth.
McDougal, corroborating a key aspect of Stormy Daniels’ story, says that all her dates with Trump took place at a bungalow in a hotel in California.
McDougal says she “felt terrible” after her first date with Trump because they were intimate and he offered her money.
McDougal says Trump had her pay for everything and then reimbursed her because he didn’t want “a paper trail” of his affair with her.
Hj Hornbecksays
Just one more:
[Karen] McDougal on what she thought when she heard about Stormy Daniels, who Trump was having an affair with at same time: “My first thought is how could she have been with him when I was with him?”
They did succeed in bumping Stormy Daniels off the front page.
I have a feeling (OK, hope) there might be something big coming in the Mueller investigation, possibly tomorrow. That could also explain the House Intel Republicans rush to shutter their investigation today.
“Top Democrat on Armed Services @SenJackReed lays into Bolton: ‘A Republican Senate was unwilling to confirm him to a top post in the Bush Administration because he is a divisive ideologue with a history of politicizing intelligence and abusiveness toward subordinates’.”
SC @463, maybe. I hope so. I also think that Mueller better hurry … more than he already is moving quickly. I agree with Rachel Maddow that Trump’s two new lawyers (Joseph diGenova and his wife) do not look like a team meant to do actual legal work. They look like a team hired to explain Trump’s actions on Fox News, using, of course, bogus legalese. Trump’s PR strategy.
We might see diGenova explaining on Fox News why Trump fired Rosenstein, etc. etc. He already has down pat the patter about how Mueller is part of a deep state conspiracy to charge Trump with a crime he didn’t commit.
Also, Bolton is going to be like a shot of steroids to Trump’s bullying, bloviating nature. Maybe Mueller can bring forward some new information before Bolton talks Trump into blowing up the entire planet with multiple nuclear wars.
Not surprised to hear from Maddow that Bolton has a history of harassing women, including making derogatory comments about their looks, their weight, and their supposed lesbianism.
“Quietly last night, Pres Trump delayed imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the nations of the European Union. Also Australia & South Korea. Tariffs suspended until May 1 and may be exempted based on negotiations.”
Trump is now threatening to veto the spending bill. With Mueller closing in, the March for Our Lives tomorrow, the Stormy Daniels interview on Sunday, leaks and defections, pressure for real Russia sanctions – he’s going to pull every rabbit out of the hat to distract and confuse.
Re #475 – Matt Yglesias points out that “They sent out a Statement of Administration Policy yesterday outlining all the reasons the White House supports the bill.”
Robert Costa: “a person very close to the president tells me he’s in the mood to ‘roll people’, see how they react, whether it’s his staff or congressional Republican leaders. He’s tired of being told he’s winning by earnest GOP types, all as newspapers and TV networks are focused on scandal.”
…Interviews and emails between Kogan and his Cambridge Analytica colleagues, provided by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie to The Washington Post, reveal Kogan as an ambitious academic who traveled the world to lecture and made inroads in some of the most elite universities in the United States and Europe as he sought new opportunities to build more elaborate databases and profit from his work, such as by working with for-profit firms such as Cambridge Analytica.
During his contract with Cambridge Analytica, the psychologist tried to acquire medical and genetic records of Americans to combine with troves of online data he claimed to have obtained. To that end, Kogan tried to create a partnership with Harvard Medical School and with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to merge his data sets with medical and genetic data, according to emails.
“One of the people I met with at Harvard medical said he might be able to get us millions of medical records and also genetic data to link up to everything. Can you imagine the possibilities then?” Kogan wrote to Cambridge Analytica data scientists in a February 2014 email. “It’s going to be AMAZING.”
Two Harvard professors cited in Kogan’s emails said Kogan voiced interest in working together, but they say they never supplied him with any medical data.
In an interview Thursday, Kogan said he feels that his work for Cambridge Analytica was in full compliance with Facebook’s data policies at the time. He said he always assumed the medical data would be anonymous and was intended to be used for an academic project unrelated to his Cambridge Analytica work….
Everything about this reeks.
(Kogan also goes by his married name, Aleksandr Spectre.)
What the hell is this about? Is his wife’s name Spectre?
In the past six years, Facebook has partnered with many academics and research institutions to examine Facebook’s effect on the world and relationships, which Facebook-backed research overwhelmingly concludes is positive.
Facebook requires researchers who want large amounts of data to partner with the social network on the research, which has presented ethical questions for researchers, said Robert Kraut, a social psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University.
The European Union has recalled its ambassador from Moscow after leaders on the continent threw their weight behind Theresa May’s stance over the Salisbury attack. Several EU member states were poised to announce expulsions of diplomats, in a bid to dismantle Vladimir Putin’s spy network.
Following a summit in Brussels to discuss the response to the Salisbury nerve agent attack, EU leaders gave their full-throated backing to the prime minister by adopting a statement declaring it was “highly likely Russia is responsible” for poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.
Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, tweeted that all leaders agreed Russia’s responsibility for the attack was highly likely.
In a significant point for May, the statement goes further than a declaration by foreign ministers earlier this week, which avoided pinning the blame on Russia. British diplomats believe that a strong message of solidarity with the UK, from Russia’s closest European neighbours, will hit home with President Putin.
France, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are understood to be considering expelling Russian diplomats, as requested by the UK government, in a coordinated strike against Moscow.
…
EU leaders discussed their response to the Salisbury poisoning over a European council summit dinner in Brussels. The UK prime minister told her fellow leaders the attack formed part of a long-term pattern of behaviour by Russia, and urged them to present a united front.
May said: “The challenge of Russia is one that will endure for years to come. As a European democracy, the UK will stand shoulder to shoulder with the EU and Nato to face these threats together. United, we will succeed.”
…
May is keen to demonstrate that the UK will continue to cooperate closely on security matters with the EU even after Brexit, and warned her fellow EU leaders that she now believed Russia to present a long-term strategic threat.
…
Lithuania’s foreign minister, Linas Linkevičius, appeared to call for the World Cup to be taken away from Russia. He said: “In Russia everything’s used for politics and to make Russia proud at being capital of this world religion football, I don’t believe it’s very productive frankly.”
…
Earlier, at a press conference in London on Thursday, Russia’s ambassador to the UK described Boris Johnson’s remarks comparing the World Cup in Russia to the 1936 Olympics as “unacceptable and totally irresponsible”….
The political action committee founded by John R. Bolton, President Trump’s incoming national security adviser, was one of the earliest customers of Cambridge Analytica, which it hired specifically to develop psychological profiles of voters with data harvested from tens of millions of Facebook profiles, according to former Cambridge employees and company documents.
Mr. Bolton’s political committee, known as The John Bolton Super PAC, first hired Cambridge in August 2014, months after the political data firm was founded and while it was still harvesting the Facebook data.
In the two years that followed, Mr. Bolton’s super PAC spent nearly $1.2 million primarily for “survey research,” which is a term that campaigns use for polling, according to campaign finance records.
But the contract between the political action committee and Cambridge, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, offers more detail on just what Mr. Bolton was buying. The contract broadly describes the services to be delivered by Cambridge as “behavioral microtargeting with psychographic messaging.”
To do that work, Cambridge used Facebook data, according to the documents and two former employees familiar with the work.
“The data and modeling Bolton’s PAC received was derived from the Facebook data,” said Christopher Wylie, a data expert who was part of the team that founded Cambridge Analytica. “We definitely told them about how we were doing it. We talked about it in conference calls, in meetings.”
…
“The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues,” Mr. Wylie said.
“That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview,” he added. “That’s what they said they wanted, anyway.”
Using the psychographic models, Cambridge helped design concepts for advertisements for candidates supported by Mr. Bolton’s PAC, including the 2014 campaign of Thom Tillis, the Republican senator from North Carolina, according to Mr. Wylie and another former employee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid being dragged into the investigations that now appear to be engulfing Cambridge….
As if Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) doesn’t already have enough problems, the Federal Election Commission contacted his campaign committee this week about potentially illegal contributions he received in 2017. The FEC sent the letter to Nunes’ campaign treasurer, who also happens to be his mother.
Bill Browder: “BREAKING: Estonian government to sanction 49 Russian officials responsible for the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky under the Estonian Magnitsky Act.”
[…] The replacement of H.R. McMaster with former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton takes a reckless, confrontational president and ensconces him in an informational architecture that will now be erected by a reckless, confrontational national security adviser. […]
Nor is it just McMaster leaving the administration and being replaced by a more Trumpist figure. Recent weeks have seen the exits of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn. Both men were replaced by more extreme candidates.
Trump also fired his lawyer John Dowd on Thursday, a move that the New Yorker’s legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin believes “substantially increases the chances that the President will move to fire [special counsel Robert] Mueller — perhaps very soon.” [Dowd may have resigned, and was not, perhaps, fired.]
Hope Hicks is likely to be replaced as communications director by Kellyanne Conway, whose famous coining of the term “alternative facts” speaks to how little emphasis she places on ensuring the information that gets to the president or out from the White House is rigorously checked and accurately sourced.
Chief of Staff John Kelly’s job is imperiled too. Trump is tired of Kelly’s gatekeeping and attempts to keep order, so he’s musing about firing Kelly and managing the White House himself.
All this is likely to lead to a cycle of immoderation ripping through the White House staff. As the ranks of the moderates thin, the jobs of the remaining moderates become more grueling and hopeless. Already, Bolton is spoiling for a fight with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who is widely seen as a key moderating force on Trump. “Sources who know Bolton expect he will stare down Mattis, tell him when he’s wrong, and will be a Henry Kissinger-type presence in the room,” reports Mike Allen. “Now that Tillerson is gone, he could fundamentally tip the balance of power on Trump’s national security team, senior officials expect.” […]
it’s entirely possible that 12 months from now, America will be embroiled in a trade war with China and Europe, in military conflict with North Korea, and managing the aftermath of Mueller’s termination […]
Chris Hayes: “I’m not one for the Trump Master PR Strategist theory, but the last two days do feel like fairly obvious and desperate attempts to change the subject.”
KGsays
Bolton is spoiling for a fight with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
I recall that Mattis is known as “Mad Dog”. He is now clearly the most rational of Trump’s foreign policy and national security team.
Cambridge Analytica conducted data research for one of the leading Brexit campaign groups and then misled the public and MPs over the work the company had undertaken, according to a former employee who has spoken to the Guardian.
In an exclusive interview, Brittany Kaiser, Cambridge Analytica’s business development director until two weeks ago, said the work with Leave.EU involved analysis of data provided by Ukip.
Emails and other documents, seen by the Guardian, show the company was worried about whether it could speak openly about the “interesting findings” and the origins of the data that had been analysed. It decided against doing so.
Kaiser, 30, said the work took a number of weeks and involved “at least six or seven meetings” with senior officials from Leave.EU, which was co-founded by Arron Banks, a Ukip donor. She said the work took place as part of an effort to secure formal business with the campaign group.
Kaiser said she felt she had lied by supporting Cambridge Analytica’s company line that it had done “no paid or unpaid work” for Leave.EU. “In my opinion, I was lying,” she said. “In my opinion I felt like we should say, ‘this is exactly what we did’.”
…
Banks said: “Leave.EU did not receive any data or work from Cambridge Analytica. Ukip did give Cambridge Analytica some of its data and Cambridge Analytica did some analysis of this. But it was not used in the Brexit campaign. Cambridge Analytica tried to make me pay for that work but I refused. It had nothing to do with us.”
Nix has repeatedly denied there was any involvement, telling MPs last month: “Let me be absolutely crystal clear about this. I do not know how many ways I can say this. We did not work for Leave.EU. We have not undertaken any paid or unpaid work for them, OK?”
His testimony appears to be challenged by Kaiser, who was a senior employee at the company until she left following a contractual dispute earlier this month.
…
[Alexander Nix] went on to express concern that “it might be argued that we contributed to the campaign in the form of ‘goodwill’”.
“When I first found out that we were going to say that we did zero work on it, I felt betrayed and lied to,” said Kaiser. “Because I was continually told I could go along with the narrative that we did work on it.”
She added: “I was like: the narrative should be that the work that we did was never paid for so Leave.EU, by not registering that we did that work, are the ones that should be in trouble. Not us for lying for their asses. Literally why should we make excuses for these people? Why? I’m so tired of making excuses for old white men.”
…
“The proposal was to do what we do for any other campaign in the world, which was to undertake a data audit. We do research for you, we build models, and then we help you execute that database through digital, direct mail, door-knocking, events, whatever.”
Kaiser said that the full proposal included two phases of work, and only the first was ever carried out. She claims she presented this initial data work 15 members of the Leave.EU campaign team in a briefing meeting, but did not supply them with the usual final report as no payment was ever made.
However, she estimated the data modelling work done by Cambridge Analytica for Leave.EU and Ukip in the run-up to the referendum was worth around £40,000.
…
In the end, no details about the Ukip data study were made public, but Kaiser sat alongside leading members of Leave.EUfor its official launch in central London.
In the following weeks Kaiser said she personally advised Leave.EU campaigners in offices in London and Bristol.
“I sat with their social media person, worked through what they did; that’s all, in my opinion, invaluable advice, and in my opinion actual work that was undertaken although no one wants to hear that because it was never ever paid for – doesn’t mean that my time wasn’t given.”
…
Nix, who the firm suspended earlier this week, has said the claim that Cambridge Analytica was involved in the referendum was fake news….
Trump also told Fox News that the many unfilled senior positions at the State Department didn’t affect the conduct of foreign policy because “I’m the only one that matters.” No need for informed briefings then.
He really does not understand, in any way, shape or form, how government works. So many federal programmes and agencies are operating without senior officials, politial appointees, that the agencies and programmes are basically operating on inertia. The professionals, the beaurocrats (who ennact policy and act on decisions), are left with no policies and no decisions so we just keep doing what we have been doing in the past. Which works for a while.
Then again, considering the calibre of Trump appointees, maybe inertia is the best we can hope for.
I thought Vladimir Kara-Murza’s PutinCon talk was the best of those I watched. You can see it here – begins at about 5:45 in.
It’s no small source of concern for me how little attention so many democracy activists appear to pay to capitalism, especially given the history of Russia and the shock therapy of the 1990s. It’s a serious problem.
Owen Smith: “Just been sacked by @jeremycorbyn for my long held views on the damage #Brexit will do to the Good Friday Agreement & the economy of the entire U.K. Those views are shared by Labour members & supporters and I will continue to speak up for them, and in the interest of our country.”
“Joshua Kushner Met with Government of Qatar to Discuss Financing in the Same Week Father Charles Kushner Did”: “Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner did last April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi’s St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan….”
[…] No doubt about it: John Bolton will definitely do a far better job [than McMaster] of amusing the toddler president, because after all, Bolton was on Fox News, and he really loves him some war stuff. And by golly, Donald Trump loves anything that sounds tough, too, so it’s a perfect match, as long as you don’t mind getting into a few wars now and then.
[…] Boy oh boy, will Trump ever be surprised when he finds out he’s picked somebody who still thinks the Iraq war was simply a great idea. […]
Just as Trump prizes toughness — or at least talking tough — above all, John Bolton sees military action as the best possible tool for remaking the world in the shape he’d like: with lots of bomb craters everywhere. Crazy peacenik military guys like McMaster may talk about military force as the last resort for foreign policy, but Bolton, like Trump, is unburdened by any actual military service, so he doesn’t have to think about the mere gritty realities of moving armies around or what happens after you bomb the hell out of foreigners. His strategic thinking, such as it is, doesn’t account for any actual humans being left around after you’ve announced “Mission Accomplished.” Which is why it’s so easy for him to pretend that foreign policy is just a matter of using lots of force here and there to get what America wants, and casualty counts barely enter into it. […]
Consider his unhinged Wall Street Journal op-ed from last August, in which he outlines three options for — say, why not — a first strike against North Korea, to eliminate its nuclear program, easy-peasy: hit all their nuclear facilities and destroy them, boom!; shoot down one of their missiles just as it’s launching, to show we can do it; or how about decapitating North Korea’s leadership with airstrikes and then literally invade the country, which would be easy, you see — we’d just “sweep in on the ground from South Korea to seize Pyongyang, nuclear assets, key military sites and other territory.” […]
And if those close allies lose millions in the aftermath, those are just numbers to John Bolton, the Big Strategic Thinker. Not incidentally, he also thinks China’s reaction would be to thank us for reunifying the Koreas, under a government friendly to us, of course. […]
Then there’s Iran. God, does Bolton ever get a stiffy at the thought of bombing the hell out of Iran. He wanted to bomb Iran during the Iraq war. He figured the first Egyptian uprising would also be a good time to bomb Iran, too. Just two months ago he did another WSJ op-ed about how easy it would be to force regime change in Iran — just bomb Iran, then go in and install a government that’s more to our liking. Again, it would just be so easy […]
Trump huffed and puffed and then he signed the omnibus funding bill.
Just a few of the things Trump said before he signed the bill:
– “we had no choice but to fund our military”
– “I will never sign another bill like this again.”
– he recommended eliminating the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate
– he asked for a line-item veto
– he said that Democrats didn’t want to protect DACA beneficiaries.
WaPo – “FBI disciplinary office recommends firing former deputy director Andrew McCabe”:
southpaw: “Whatever the merits of the OPR investigation, McCabe has a mountain of evidence of improper command influence from Trump’s tweets alone.”
From Bernie Sanders:
Link
Follow-up to comments 210, 226, 479, 488, and comment 500. In other news, here is an analysis of Gary Cohn’s tax legacy now that he is being replaced by Kudlow:
Link. Much more info at the link.
A court date has been set:
Link
Link back to comment on “How Jeff Sessions Is Sneaking Trump Allies Into Key DOJ Positions That Normally Require Senate Confirmation.”
Link back to the beginning of the discussion about the firing of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who may be fired just days before his pension would kick in (after 22 years of service).
See also comments 493, and 495.
From Robin Wright, writing for The New Yorker:
Much more at the link.
There doesn’t seem to be a consensus among the most knowledgeable people on the severity or potential effectiveness of the set of sanctions May announced today. Luke Harding calls the measures “modest” and “underwhelming” and thinks they’ll do little to deter Putin. Julia Ioffe tweeted: “On vacation with three other former Moscow correspondents. Four jaws dropped at the news of May’s retaliatory measures. This is, as they say, a BFD.” Others have had a similar response.
(I know I’ve been beating this drum for months now, but Ned Price brought it up on TV the other day – I think more measures were set in motion by Obama/Biden before they left office which might not yet have played out.)
This Friday, March 16th, the Human Rights Foundation will host PutinCon in New York:
The program can be found here. Typical dearth of women. Also, it’s heavy on journalists and politicians and light on sociologists, psychologists, and historians. But looks like it could be interesting.
* The event begins at 9 AM ET.
Re #s 1 and 6 above:
Nikki Haley at UNSC meeting just now:
“Parents of murdered Democratic staffer Seth Rich sue Fox News”:
“Document: House Intelligence Committee Minority Russia Investigation Status Report.”
“.@nikkihaley says ‘The US believes that Russia is responsible’ for the Salisbury nerve agent attack.”
Haley called it a “defining moment.”
lynna #466
Thank you.
Brave of Haley? Or does she just want a way out?
The behaviour of the Executive Branch in this affair takes me right back to 1982; Reagan and Al Haig and the Falklands. Rather a different cause at the base of it all, but the absence of backing for one’s closest ally was similarly shameful.
@ 17
Haley must want out. Considering that Sanders refused to even say the word “Russia” when questioned on the attacks today, calling the attack “reckless and indiscriminate,” it’s obvious Trump will never accuse Russia. Like Tillerson when he contradicted Trump, Haley is history.
NYT: “Breaking News: The Democrat Conor Lamb has an insurmountable lead in a Pennsylvania House race in Trump country. We’re calling it in his favor.”
I can think of a few motives for Haley. She could want out, especially since she was eyeing the Secretary of State job and wasn’t offered it and because she sees the way things are going with this “administration” and wants to get out with her dignity and reputation (relatively) intact. She could also be calculating that after the Tillerson firing Trump wouldn’t risk the fallout from firing her after she spoke out like this. She could well genuinely want to see serious actions taken against Putin – I haven’t seen any indication that she’s a Putin toady, and her day-to-day interactions at the UN can only have increased her sensitivity to Putin’s malevolence and danger. She’s scrappy and ambitious, and probably thinks standing up to Putin (and pushing Trump to do so), whatever the immediate consequence for her, will burnish her domestic and international reputation in the long run.
“Paul Manafort has a new lawyer, Richard Westling, per new court filing.”
Now I have to rewind – Ari Melber just pointed out that Clarence Page has a Steal Your Face sticker on his phone and then the two of them and E.J. Dionne started quoting Dead lyrics and now I missed the whole PA-18 discussion.
Whoa, these are actually strong words (full statement at the link) – “White House: ‘The United States shares the United Kingdom’s assessment that Russia is responsible for the reckless nerve agent attack’.”
Importantly, however, no indication yet of any actual actions.
Reading through the statement again – “reckless” remains odd and weak; also, they say they stand by the expulsion of the diplomats as a “just response” without mentioning any of the other real or potential sanctions. This is the most minimal of the sanctions, so implying that it alone is proportional or sufficient and not discussing or announcing anything else is underplaying the situation. There needs to be intense pressure.
Tweet o’ the day.
How’s that 2016 firebombing investigation going, by the way?
Charlie Pierce:
Beautiful.
IL has a primary election next week. I voted early. One phone call got a quick hang-up. Fellow rethug….*click*
WW2 Tweets from 1940: “New York Times comments on feeling across Europe today: ‘Once again a small nation relied on the help of the Western powers & paid dearly for her trust’.”
On the surrender of about 10% of Finnish territory to the Soviet Union:
Gotta admire some reporters. Steve Kornacki, election statistics specialist for MSNBC, was up all night last night until the network finally declared Lamb the apparent winner at ~5:40 am ET. Then continued reporting on Morning Joe a little later.
I had noticed his left hand had had something on it, like a soft brace I wear when my carpal tunnel syndrome acts up. Turns out he had surgery later today for an injury for a bicycle accident prior to the overly long evening. I salute his dedication.
Agreed. And I agree with James Bloodworth in your link @462 that Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray are a malign influence on Corbyn. Both are upper-class Stalinists.
SC@8,23
What was notably absent from May’s statement were any financial measures against Putin’s cronies, who have huge sums invested in the UK, much of it in real estate – so they can’t take it out. On the BBC this morning, there was an item interviewing a British financier (I didn’t get his name) and one of the BBC’s own economics team, which explained how deep (and old) links between the City of London (i.e., the UK’s financial elite) and the Russian elite are – going back to Soviet times, when the Soviets wanted somewhere to park their dollars out of reach of the Federal Reserve, and chose London. The item was full of the “dilemma” of whether the UK should risk actual financial damage in response to Putin attacking the country with chemical weapons. I’m sure Sergeant Nick Bailey fully appreciates this conundrum from his hospital bed.
Further on Corbyn – he could easily have outflanked May by demanding financial measures against the oligarchs, linking the lack of them to the donations to the Tories, and their wider subservience to the UK financial elite.
The White House statement is certainly a change – but it’s still notable that Trump has said (or tweeted) nothing himself. One suspects that Putin has been privately reassured that no action will follow, and Trump’s own silence is the overt signal of this.
Retracting part of what I said in #34, Trump himself has actually said the following:
So, we’ll see if he follows up on this with a straightforward condemnation of Putin.
Happy Ides of March. Today we celebrate the peaceful settlement of political differences. Julius Caesar put his all into it.
“In fundraising speech, Trump says he made up trade claim in meeting with Justin Trudeau”:
This speech is a great illustration of Trump’s psychology.
Gee. I am so surprised. Really. Toys-R-Us was, at least in part, a victim of malignant capitalism:
Bain Capital. The company that buys troubled companies, guts them, and then walks away from the wreckage. I don’t know if Toys-R-Us could have survived — the market for large specialty stores is limited — but they were spending $400million a year servicing the debt. Which meant no improvements. Which meant no expansion into new markets. Which meant no expansion into internet sales. Which meant the stores looked and felt like dirty warehouses. I don’t know (and will most likely never know) how much Bain Capital made in helping Toys-R-Us into liquidation but I would bet it was lots.
“JUST IN: In joint statement, U.S., U.K., French, German leaders say they believe Russia was responsible for the nerve agent attack against an ex-spy and his daughter.” (Statement at the link.)
As Natasha Bertrand points out in response to the joint statement @ #39, “The Trump administration has still not imposed the sanctions on Russia that were passed by Congress last year.”
“U.S. Sanctions Russian Troll Farm for Alleged Election Meddling”:
Here’s Treasury’s press release on the sanctions.
From the Treasury press release (emphasis added):
Get imposing these already.
Matthew Miller on sanctions: “If they really want to bring pain to Vladimir Putin, they’re going to have to sanction the senior officials close to him … and maybe Putin’s assets themselves.”
“Briefing reporters, Senior Admin Officials say the sanctions are just one of a series of actions ‘to counter Russia aggression’ and there will be more US actions ‘to counter malicious Russian activity’.”
A spokeswoman for the Czech court confirmed to the AP that George Nader, who’s now cooperating with the Mueller probe, “was convicted of ‘moral corruption of minors, sexual abuse and impairing morals’, after abusing underage boys” there and sentenced to a year in prison in 2003.
“Russian exile’s death in London is suspicious, friends claim”:
Michael Carpenter:
John Sipher: “Agree. Means nothing. They are proud of what they did. Sanctions mean nothing to them.”
(As several people have pointed out, they’re significant in the sense that they endorse Mueller’s findings, but as sanctions they’re pretty minimal and also belated. They need to do what they say they intend @ #43 sooner rather than later.)
From Steve Benen:
In other financial news related to Trump, his attorney John Dowd, violated election law in 2017. He contributed more than is legally allowed to Trump.
CNBC link
SC in comment 37 mentioned that Trump seemed to threaten to withdraw US troops from South Korea as part of his bullying tactic to get a better trade deal. South Korean leaders are reported to be “bewildered.”
Oh, no. I do not want a “Phase 2” of Trumpian tax cuts.
This is from the New York Times:
Trump also thinks that the previous round of tax cuts were “popular.” No, that’s not true. A Quinnipiac poll found that 36% of Americans support the Republican tax law. Other polls also found the “disapprove” ratings higher than the “approve” ratings.
https://twitter.com/JesseFFerguson/status/971461132673257482
Trump’s view of Conor Lamb’s win in Pennsylvania:
Lamb opposed Trump’s tax plan. Lamb supported universal health care. Lamb opposed Paul Ryan’s planned cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
Lamb is not like Trump. Lamb never said that he is like Trump. Lamb is not delusional like Trump.
Trump’s statement is bonkers. I guess Trump would try anything to explain away another loss.
SC @37, one thing that amazes me about that speech is that Trump was actually bragging about making shit up. Trump bragged about lying to Trudeau’s face. Trump thinks that is a virtue:
Trump claims that his aide came back and told him that the USA does have a trade deficit with Canada. According to data put out by the Trump administration the USA has a trade surplus with Canada.
Trump told a story that glorified ignorance. That story then took a turn to glorify Trump’s intuition, or some such bull pucky. (See, he is right even when he hasn’t studied the issues and doesn’t know anything about the data. /sarcasm) Bull pucky.
Trump is proud of his ignorance.
Trump can’t stop at one lie. He has to embellish. He has to pile lie on top of lie. This is a disaster for the U.S.
Jimmy Kimmel went shopping at the Trump Organization’s online store. He found potential violations of law and absolutely no goods made in America. Scroll down for the video. Link
Kimmel begins the segment with a summary of Conor Lamb’s win in Pennsylvania. Kimmel also discussed the Trump tariffs on steel on aluminum, and Trump’s emphasis on manufacturing products in the USA.
“Mueller Subpoenas Trump Organization, Demanding Documents About Russia”:
“The lawyers have advised Mr. Trump to refuse an interview but the president wants to do it, as he believes he has done nothing wrong and can easily answer investigators’ questions.” What is wrong with them that they’re compelled to repeat this bullshit?
Trump is finalizing his plan to fight the opioid epidemic. His plan includes the death penalty for dealers. I wonder if this means that he is going to put to death the head honchos of pharmaceutical companies that ship thousands of pills per person into small towns?
Link
So what if hair furor hinted he maybe thinks Russia was behind the recent assassination. He lies so frequently, so causally, I wouldn’t believe him if he said his name was (without independent and verifiable confirmation). He’s said contradictory things about, as one quite recent example, guns — what he’s said seems to depend on who he last met and (supposedly) listened-to.
If you are ever included to believe any hair furor utterance (without independent and verifiable confirmation), go to Puerto Rico and tell every single person you meet hair furor isn’t a liar.
Outrageous – “Emails reveal conservative alarm over ‘Obama holdovers’ in Trump administration: ‘A cleaning is in order,’ wrote a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, as State Department officials reassigned a career diplomat of Iranian descent.”
Adam Schiff on the sanctions announced today: “If President Trump believes that today’s action sufficiently addresses the sanctions package Congress sent to respond forcefully to Moscow’s election interference, then he is sorely mistaken.” (Full statement at the link.)
From Wonkette, coverage of why and how Devin Nunes is even more ill-informed than we thought:
US housing department adviser quits amid questions of fraud and inflated biography:
It’s calling lying.
Teh bestest peoples.
National University does indeed have a BA in Pre-Law Studies, so he might not be lying about that. Apparently they used to have a school of law, but it was closed c.1991 (c.27 years ago); this nutter apparently “arrived in the US in about 2005”, and is now 38, so it is impossible for him to have attended their school of law.
† There is indeed a class of decisions and implementations which should be done on a fairly local / small-scale basis. However, this nutter’s goes way too far in that direction, and positively stinks of loonytarian “thinking”; hence the
Sometimes I really hate my office. I work a cubicle, which means that any conversation in my office is heard by all. I just listened to two of our volunteers complaining about Trump. Well, not complaining about Trump, but complaining about how he is being treated.
The short version is:
* Obama got elected by having illegal voters bused in and promising to give things to people.
* Congress and the courts gave Obama everything he asked for with no conditions attached and he forced 200,000 doctors out of practice by forcing Obamacare on everyone.
* Congress and the courts gave Obama everything he asked for with no conditions and destroyed the thriving economy that Bush II had fostered, bankrupted millions, put America into a depression, and left office with the stock market worth half what it was when he took office.
* No Obama appointees were ever forced to resign or were even investigated.
* Now, with Trump, congress is being held hostage by the radical left Democrat Party [sic] who have stopped any of Trump’s wonderful ideas being enacted and instead are spending billions of dollars (Biiiiillions, I tell you!) investigating one man who had some business dealings with Russia and trying to make it look like Trump is some sort of liar or worse.
* The radical left has blocked his wonderful health care plan, stopped him protecting America by stopping the Obama push to bring in Muslims, prevented almost all his nominees for secretaries and judgeships going forward, and said mean things about him.
* No Obama appointees were ever investigated but look how many good people have been forced out of office by innuendos and fake news.
* And, to top it off, Hillary’s emails and the good people she murdered in Benghazi are a far bigger scandal than anything Trump or his people have done.
They are both retired. Both white men. One was a teacher who went to school on the GI bill and has a fantastic pension. One worked for a defense contractor and is worth millions. And both think that Fox News has gotten too liberal. These two are otherwise rational Americans. And they believe all this shit.
And no matter how much I turned the music coming through my earbuds up, they kept getting louder and louder and louder. Even Verdi arias did not cover up the shit.
‘Trump’s agenda is anti-growth’: Trump’s new economic adviser in his own words (minor edits for formatting reasons (not marked); Grauniad edits in {curly braces}):
Taken at face value, some of excerpted Kudlow quotes seem sensible — which does not mean he also won’t be one of teh hair furor’s bestest people — hence not being . One exception is the †-marked redacted text:
Trump Organization ‘negotiated with sanctioned Russian bank in 2016’:
Oggie @61, that is … alarming. It makes you wonder how such people hold down a job. Do other parts of their brains still work?
I don’t think you could debunk that torrent fast enough. You’d be buried in the flood of bull pucky.
Another chemical plant has exploded in Texas.
Link
Trump is anxious to scrap NAFTA. He harps on it constantly. Other people are not so sure that’s a good idea:
Link
Too many words for Trump to read. Too many complex ideas for Trump to understand.
Trump’s Unlawful Policy of Detaining Asylum Seekers Without Parole
Both are retired. The teacher got in on the housing bubble and retired a millionaire. The defense contractor used stock options to retire a millionaire. Now, all they do (aside from volunteering here) is watch Fox News and talk with other old, rich, retired white men and kvetch about the damn kids, the blacks, the Latinos, the Muslims, the poor, the working class. After all, they lifted themselves up by their bootstraps (using student loans, low state tuition, etc) so why should those people get anything. I suspect they were good at their jobs. Now they are so blinded by privilege that they are inhabiting second earth.
The good: He’s talking about the problem.
The very much not good: US Senate candidate proposes arming homeless people with shotguns:
According to the National Coliaton for the Homeless (No Safe Street: A Survey of Violence Committed against Homeless People, July-2016):
The excerpted summary does not compare the rate of violence against the homeless to that against any of the housed (I did not check the full report). However, in the UK, it’s about 15 times more likely for a homeless person to be attacked (Crisis report reveals shocking dangers of being homeless, Dec-2016 (“Crisis” is the name of a UK homelessness NGO)).
Whilst the loonytarian in the first excerpt also doesn’t like the militarization of the police, why do I have the suspicion he hasn’t really thought about the problems (plural) here in any depth?
Iran sentences Tehran professor to jail for :
The Iranian attacks and restrictions on the BBC, its Persian staff, and the family of those staff, have been the subject of multiple comments in this series of poopyhead threads.
Prof Zibakalam is clearly not easily intimidated. For instance, from an April-2015 profile in the Grauniad, The Iranian professor who dares to differ on nuclear matters and Israel:
From the link embedded in the first excerpt about “judge” Salavati (Six judges accused of leading role in Iranian crackdown on free speech, July-2014):
These “judges” sound similar to the sort of kooks hair furor and the thugs in Congress are installing in the USAian federal courts.
“I just did some quick research on the company that built that Florida bridge that collapsed and eek.
They secured a massive gov contract for Guantanamo, have Manafort ties and whispers of foreign shady dealings PLUS the founder/owner is a Cuban ex-CIA collaborator.”
The story about the Manafort ties and CMZ (in which Manafort partnered with Brad Zackson, a former employee of Fred Trump who did time in the ’80s for like attempted murder; also which appears to have been nothing but a vehicle to launder money Dmitry Firtash stole from Ukraine) is wild.
The kook who is running for reelection as Hungry’s prime minister (PM), Viktor Orbán, has not yet (as far as I know) suggested extermination camps, Hungarian leader says Europe is now by migrants:
“Sarah Sanders claims Trump has been “extremely tough” on Russia; says it’s up to Russia to ‘decide whether they want to be a good actor or a bad actor’
… and suggests that Putin could still be ‘a friend’ of the U.S.”
During the same briefing she asserted outright that veteran FBI official Andrew McCabe is a bad actor.
More fallout from the apparent mafia assassination of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak, Slovakia’s PM resigns amid scandal over murder of journalist:
Hair furor and Viktor Orbán (see @72) are not the only paranoid fantasists. (Orbán has also made wild accusations about Soros with a distinctly antisemitic tone.)
In the UK, Counterterror police investigate day letters:
This has been promptly turned on its head, ‘Love a Muslim Day’ list in response to hate letter:
Trump Jr.’s wife Vanessa has filed for divorce.
Speaking of turning Islamaphobia on its head (see @75), $1.2m fund to pay Denmark’s veil fines:
Tweet o’ the day.
Last weekend the French le penazis had a conference, with Bannon as a surpise speaker, Wear like a badge of honour, Bannon tells French far-right summit:
Marion is usually considered the most extreme of the three, which is quite a feat when you consider how überextreme the orge (Jean-Marie) is. No surprise Bannon prefers her.
On the comical proposal to change the le penazis name, it turns out there already is a group of fruitcakes calling themselves Rassemblement National, who are not at all pleased to associated with another group of kooks. (This is in addition to the historical loons who have used the name in the past.) Marine Le Pen sparks row over new name for Front National:
SC @73, McCabe is defending himself today. I wish him well. He has the chops needed to put together a good defense. If nothing else, he can surely delay the forces trying to fire him so that they can’t fire him before he retires and his pension kicks in.
In a first, an undocumented immigrant is appointed to a statewide post in California:
Minutes after blockbuster report on Russia investigation, the knives are out for Rod Rosenstein. Fox News chief intelligence correspondent, Catherine Herridge, says (wrongly) that Mueller would have had to get authority from Rosenstein to subpoena the Trump organization. Trump, however, has said that any investigation into his business activities by Mueller would cross a “red line,” so, according to the deep thinkers at Fox, this means Rosenstein has to go. Since Trump gets his policies by watching Fox, there’s probably a pretty good chance of it.
Mika Brzezinski just asked Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti whether Daniels had been threatened, and he said “Yes.” She then asked if she had been physically threatened, and again he said “Yes.”
(By the way, the airing of the “60 Minutes” interview with Daniels has been pushed back one week – now scheduled for Sunday the 25th.)
“Cyberattacks Put Russian Fingers on the Switch at Power Plants, U.S. Says”:
“US housing department adviser quits amid questions of fraud and inflated biography”:
“Republicans fear they botched Russia report rollout”:
[Sorry – I missed that blf shared the Jafry story @ #60 above.]
Further to #57 – “Dems: Trump Officials Worked With Activists To Target State Dept. Career Staff”: “Reps. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Eliot Engel (D-NY) — the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Foreign Affairs Committees, respectively — made the claims in a letter dated Thursday to White House chief of staff John Kelly and Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan. In the letter, Cummings and Engel requested documents and interviews related to the reassignment of State Department career staff and civil servants.”
Human rights body faces cash crisis after clash with Russia:
“NRA lawyer said to have had concerns about group’s ties to Russia”:
Officialdom cannot commit erorrs, i’ts unpossble,
Romanian court tells man he is not alive (quoted in full):
The “judge(s?)” that decided an obviously alive individual is dead because of what is written on some pieces of paper are some of the bestest people. Hair furor will hire them soon (provided that aren’t guilty of being brown or black, or gay, or female, or Muslim, or…).
hahahahahahahahahahaha*gasp*hahahahahahahahahahaha
The Grauniad’s parliamentary sketch writer, John Carce, delivers some good news with a snarking, Hawking, happiness and homeopathy — it’s been a week for black holes:
LOL.
“Protests held across Brazil after Rio councillor shot dead”:
* Sure – “despite.”
Here’s the video of the exchange described @ #83 above.
Subsequent discussion made it clear that Brzezinski had asked because they’ve heard things about a particular Trump associate they wouldn’t name.
Ozland’s nazis are all in spittle-flecked frothing bother about a proposal in S.Africa to amend its constitution to allow for property seizures (more on this backstory below (second excerpt)), Peter Dutton’s offer to white South African farmers started on the far right. Peter Dutton is Ozland’s Minister for Home Affairs, and formerly the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, meaning he was in charge of the concentration camps on Manus Island and Nauru (alarm bells should be ringing!). The Grauniad’s edits are in {curly braces}:
The first link embedded in the above excerpt explains what S.Africa is proposing, and the lack of evidence for teh nazi claims (South Africa criticises Australian plan to fast-track white farmer visas, my emboldening):
Not necessarily coincidentally, Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp, who are spreading this nonsense via Fox, and in Ozland, etc., is an Ozlandian (Australian), albeit he now has USAian citizenship.
Josh Dawsey: “Senior White House person messages: ‘Something is going to happen today. I just don’t think anyone knows what it is’. Helpful but honest.”
NY congresswoman Louise Slaughter has died.
I mentioned the joint statement about the nerve-toxin attack @ #39. The French government also released a statement saying they’d seen incontrovertible evidence of Kremlin authorship and expressing their full solidarity. The German government did the same. Hard to believe more action won’t be forthcoming.
“‘Overwhelmingly Likely’ That Putin Ordered Spy’s Poisoning, Britain Says”:
The smirking denials of Russian officials, while they and the state media boast and threaten, are sickeningly reminiscent of Hitler’s behavior during the 1930s as he committed one criminal act of aggression and contempt after another.
Tweet o’ the day.
The UK’s hair furor worship department, the Home Office, is now trying to illegally deport Mexicans, Durham University academics given two weeks to leave UK:
Teh Home Office has been blundering around like a gang of drunken nazis concocting increasingly bizarre reasons to illegally deport people (and crass handing of asylum claims, Asylum interview: 10 examples of absurdity from the Home Office: “Applying is no joke, but some of the questioning and the grounds for refusal appear farcical”). This is only the latest (known) example.
Update to #47 – “Murder investigation launched after man found dead in New Malden”:
Andrea Mitchell: “I will never forget the day #LouiseSlaughter and 6 other House Democratic Congresswomen marched to the Senate to demand that the all-male Senate Judiciary committee delay a final vote on Clarence Thomas October 8 1991. She lost that battle but was a fighter to the end. RIP”
From Steve Benen:
Emma González, the “skinhead lesbian” presumably, is openly bisexual.
Trump’s new economic adviser Lawrence Kudlow has been wrong about everything for decades
Minted: the rich guys in Trump’s cabinet who can’t resist public money (minor formatting changes (not marked)):
Mrs Mnuchin, you are Scottish. Although I rather suspect they don’t want you either. Ye Pfffft! of All Knowledge says Linton later apologized, and also notes that’s not the first time she’s been a privileged arse:
Back to the Grauniad’s article on hair furor’s sleazebags:
All teh bestest peoples!
More Trumpian stupidity, this time from FEMA:
NPR link
FEMA is following in the footsteps of other agencies that, under Trump, are ignoring parts of their core mission in order to be politically correct in Trump world.
From the Washington Post:
Huh?: “Don Jr’s wife hires criminal defense lawyer for divorce case as Mueller probe heats up.”
Josh Marshall: “We just recorded a Josh Marshall Podcast Extra edition w Stormy lawyer Michael Avenatti. Lotsa new details on those threats to stay quiet mentioned this morning, also unnamed ‘Trump Associates’ allegedly spreading rumors & threatening Daniels. We expect to post in about an hour.”
Also, Chris Hayes will interview Felix Sater tonight on his show on MSNBC (8 PM ET).
“Complaint claims Trump lawyers threatened Panama magistrate”:
Hee.
Reminder (see #9 above): PutinCon is today. You can watch the livefeed here.
“Hacker Adrian Lamo dies at 37: The circumstances of Lamo’s death are not yet known.”:
I love this.
Isreal’s facist kleopocracy is moving rapidly to implementing full-scale apartheid, Israeli parliament endorses ‘nation-state bill’ for first reading:
More details at the link.
Death threats aimed at Stephanie Clifford and at her lawyer:
Link
Steve Bannon is still touring Europe, and still stirring up trouble. He had this to say about Mussolini:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/bannon-fascinated-mussolini
Bannon’s choice of words reminds me of Sebastian Gorka saying that the “age of the pajama boy is over” and that the “alpha males” were back.
Now that Rex Tillerson has been fired, it looks like Trump is sending his daughter Ivanka to fill in as Secretary of State:
KBS World Radio link
Not to make light of the matter, but I’m chuckling at this because it’s so true, and so strange.
Emmanuel Macron tweeted a few hours ago: “Je veux avoir un mot de solidarité pour nos amis britanniques. Tout porte à croire que le gouvernement russe est impliqué. Nous réaffirmons notre volonté commune d’interdire toute utilisation d’arme chimique.”
So…common sanctions?
Republicans in Georgia continue to look for ways to suppress the black vote:
Link
I can’t quite fathom why this change wasn’t made long ago. Indiana moves to lift archaic food stamp policy.
Lynna @ #119:
These people have issues. (You also have to love the appreciation for spiffy dress from a ragamuffin like Bannon.)
More anti-science shenanigans from Republicans:
Link
Ah – this explains #110: the guy is also a civil lawyer who handles divorces.
Update from Puerto Rico:
Link
Much more at the link.
“Steve Mnuchin’s office was told that a commercial flight to Miami wold cost $688 per person while a government flight would cost a total of $26,953.33. Mnuchin took a military flight that cost $45,136.”
Democrats may prosecute witnesses who lied to or mislead the members of the House Intelligence Committee.
Prime targets for prosecution:
Erik Prince
Carter Page
Roger Stone
Link
Link
“Brussels publishes US tariffs retaliation lists totaling €6.4 billion.”
Barry McCaffrey: “Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.”
Re #133 – I see that account isn’t verified, which I assume his would be, so I’ll hold off on the attribution.
Guardian oped: “This is how to curb Putin: stop welcoming Russian kleptocrats.”
I’ll put these together:
“John Kelly: Rex Tillerson Was on the Toilet When I Told Him He’d Be Getting Fired.”*
“Burn It Down, Rex.”
* Note: He got sick on his African trip. He was sick. Grieving over the recent loss of his father. This is how they treat him.
Heh.
Good god. (Navarro is some pissant opportunist running against Maxine Waters.)
Just watched Felix Sater on All In with Chris Hayes. Reminded of a greased pig….
Sater has an interesting sniffing thing.
SC @136, furthermore, it looks like Kelly may have called Tillerson, but either Kelly did not make it clear that Trump was firing him, and/or Tillerson thought that after he talked to Trump he would still have a job.
Tillerson says Kelly woke him up with a call. That’s different from sitting on the toilet, which, even if true, you do not tell journalists. You do not go out of your way to humiliate employees that you are firing … unless you are part of the Trump administration.
Andrea Mitchell reports that on the flight back to the U.S., Tillerson was talking to journalists onboard the plane about future events: plans for talks with North Korea, etc. That doesn’t sound like a man who knew he had been fired.
Sater is more intelligent, and more coherent than Carter Page. At least there’s that.
Facebook has suspended SCL/Cambridge Analytica.
Avenatti: “How can President Donald Trump seek $20 million in damages against my client based on an agreement that he and Mr. Cohen claim Mr. Trump never was a party to and knew nothing about? #notwellthoughtout #sloppy #checkmate”
Avenatti: “The fact that a sitting president is pursuing over $20M in bogus ‘damages’ against a private citizen, who is only trying to tell the public what really happened, is remarkable. Likely unprecedented in our history. We are NOT going away and we will NOT be intimidated. #basta”
Waiting for Carole Cadwalladr…
How do the people at FB think this is right in any way? Just fucking come clean. We’re a forgiving people.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe — two days shy of his retirement.”
Yup.
southpaw: “I hope McCabe sues the bejesus out of the DOJ.”
McCabe’s statement.
Andrea Mitchell: “One suggestion from a McCabe supporter: if a friendly member of Congress hired him for a week he could possibly qualify for pension benefits by extending his service the extra days.”
I have no idea whatsoever if this is true, but if it is do it.
Update to #146 – Carole Cadwalladr, 5 minutes ago: “Tomorrow you will understand how absolutely outrageous it is that Facebook have done this now…two years after they first knew. And failed to inform their users.”
SC @148, so Jeff Sessions fired McCabe at about 10:00 PM on a Friday night, about 48 hours before McCabe was due to retire. Even if it turns out that McCabe misled investigators about his talks with the Wall Street Journal (not likely), or even if investigators misunderstood testimony given by McCabe, there is no reason other than purely evil trumpishness to fire a civil servant with 22 years of admittedly great service in a way that will strip him of his pension.
There’s political stink all over this. Trump started going after McCabe during the campaign, and he continued going after McCabe during the first year of his presidency. Trump called for McCabe to be fired, (and that was improper right there). Trump specifically threatened McCabe’s pension (on Twitter). This looks like Trump being petty, vindictive … and like Trump is desperate to discredit the witnesses to the events leading up to Comey’s firing.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders called McCabe a “bad actor” during a press conference. That’s improper.
Jeff Sessions comes off as Trump’s toady.
Trump’s name, and his alias in the Stormy Daniels contract, now appear on court papers filed by Trump and his attorney Cohen to have the lawsuit moved from a state court in California to a Federal court in which Trump appointed the judges.
Trump and Cohen are also claiming that Stormy Daniels owes them $20 million.
Remember Trump telling McCabe to ask his wife what it feels it like to be a loser? (McCabe’s wife ran for office as a Democrat. McCabe himself is a lifelong Republican.)
I hope this incident is part of what takes Trump down.
LOL.
So do I.
From David Kurtz:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime-beta/as-ominous-as-it-gets
Speculation: Sessions fired McCabe in order to, in part, protect Mueller. If Sessions had refused to fire McCabe, Trump would have fired Sessions. That would have left the way open to getting Mueller fired.
Sessions may have just been protecting his own ass. He didn’t want to be fired himself.
Sessions may have been trying to “protect” Trump from firing Mueller in some way.
Either way, the rules weren’t followed. Trump called for a politically-motivated firing and that firing was done.
No matter what Sessions tells himself to excuse this, he is wrong. He acted wrongly.
From Joaquin Castro:
Endorse.
From Representative Eric Swalwell:
Fox News posted news of McCabe’s firing before McCabe was formally notified.
https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/974779465095155712
Preet Bharara: “Once upon a time I thought Alberto Gonzales was the weakest and most craven Attorney General in modern times. I was wrong.”
Trump tweeted: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI – A great day for Democracy. Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!”
John Brennan responded to Trump’s tweet @ #166: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America…America will triumph over you.”
(By the way, that was McCaffrey @ #133 above. Lawrence O’Donnell was interviewing him by phone about it last night, but cut him off mid-sentence when the McCabe news broke. I don’t know why he’s still not verified on Twitter.)
Here’s McCabe’s statement in easier-to-read form. It concludes:
Tweet o’ the day.
“Corbyn not given access to top‑secret information”:
Update to #153 – here’s Cadwalladr’s article:
“Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach”:
More at the link. Cadwalladr just tweeted: “Yesterday @facebook threatened to sue us. Today we publish this.”
Liam Byrne replied to Cadwalladr: “Next week, we’ll table crucial amendments to #DataProtectionBill to bring order to this online chaos that’s now threatens free and fair elections.”
Here’s the companion article from the NYT – “How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions”:
Much more at the link.
* I always wondered where the name came from. I thought for a long time that it was a reference to Cambridge, MA. The suggested link to the university is itself kind of incriminating.
Brian Stelter asked Cadwalladr about the nature of the FB lawsuit threat. She replied: “Facebook instructed external lawyers and warned us we were making ‘false and defamatory’ allegations. Today they said it was not correct to call this a data breach. We are calling it a data breach.”
“Trump’s Lawyer: It’s Time to End the Mueller Probe”:
Matthew Miller on #175: “Here it is, the point all of the attacks on law enforcement by Trump, Nunes, Fox News and the rest have been inevitably building to. Red alert time.”
Betsy Woodruff just told Joy Reid that Dowd just emailed her to walk back his earlier statement – he was speaking in his personal capacity and not for Trump.
Betsy Woodruff is saying Dowd sends all of his emails in purple Comic Sans and Joy Reid’s face is hilarious.
13-minute interview with Christopher Wylie.
Miller: “The president has said the same thing on a number of occasions so I don’t know why anyone would believe Dowd wasn’t representing his views.”
“Felix Sater confirms: Trump was pursuing deal with sanctioned Russian bank during campaign.”
Mark Warner: “Every member of Congress, Republican and Democrat, needs to speak up in defense of the Special Counsel. Now.”
Adam Schiff: “The President, through his lawyer, called on DOJ to end Mueller probe. Obstruction of justice is no less a threat to our democracy when done in the open than behind closed doors. Every representative should condemn this flagrant abuse of power or stop pretending devotion to duty.”
Maggie Haberman: “Trump was livid over subpoena story from @nytmike and me two days ago. Dowd statement about Mueller, pre-walk back, comes after that angry bout.”
Seriously. This is the shoddy practice and attitude of a company trying to claim that “Protecting people’s information is at the heart of everything we do.”
David Carroll: “I have filed a legal claim in the UK against Cambridge Analytica/SCL under the Data Protection Act. Thank you to all those who have backed me in this effort….”
Much more information at the link.
The office of Massachusetts AG Maura Healey is opening an investigation into the FB/Cambridge Analytica affair.
Carroll’s Twitter thread mentioned a “DR. SPECTRE” which I thought must be a nickname for Kogan or someone else. It’s this guy, who works with Kogan. He’s literally Dr. Aleksandr Spectre.
This from FB’s statement is especially galling (emphasis added):
They’re doubling down:
No one in their right mind would set their account so that if their friend used an app it could then unbeknownst to them suck up a bunch of their personal information. A few hundred thousand people used the app, and it gathered data on tens of millions. That’s aside from this idiotic “it wasn’t a breach” spin, the two years of hiding this (including from government investigations in two countries), and the bogus legal threats to reporters revealing their malfeasance. They are in big fucking trouble.
Statement from McCabe’s lawyer Michael Bromwich.
James Comey: “Mr. President, the American people will hear my story very soon. And they can judge for themselves who is honorable and who is not.”
Kathy Griffin: “I just found out that my Carnegie Hall show sold out in a day. I’m in shock. For most of the past year I was convinced that my career was over…I have felt moments of despair that I can’t describe in a tweet. Thank you from the bottom of my heart…I am so grateful.”
Carroll’s Twitter thread mentioned a “DR. SPECTRE” which I thought must be a nickname for Kogan or someone else. It’s this guy, who works with Kogan. He’s literally Dr. Aleksandr Spectre.
I was wrong! Someone else pointed out that this is another name Kogan uses, which you can see in the publications list (I thought it was strange for two similar-looking young guys named Aleksandr to be in the same department and working together). He uses this alias on his official university page, which is utterly bizarre.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT) has written to Chuck Grassley requesting an urgent hearing in the Judicial Committee on the politicization of the DOJ and Russia investigation. Here’s his press release:
(Link to the letter at the link. Next to his signature, Leahy wrote in pen “Chuck – it is serious.”)
JFC.
SC @173, (and subsequent comments on the Cambridge Analytica theft of data), this is a fact that bothers me: Cambridge Analytica “still possesses most or all of the trove.”
So, who are they going to sell that trove to next? Will someone create an LLC to receive the data? Will it disappear now, only to reappear later?
How is it possible to fix this?
Unrelated: I made a mistake in comment 154. “22 years” should have been “21 years.”
Update to #152:
(At least one other appears to have done the same. I still don’t know if this would work, or if McCabe will accept.)
SC @168, One takeaway from McCabe’s statement is that, even if the OIG managed to find “a lack of candor” in some small way, the hasty firing of McCabe before his pension kicked in was a highly disproportionate reaction.
From Representative Charlie Dent, a Republican from Pennsylvania:
The text above is excerpted from an interview on CNN.
Conclusions:
Trump’s tweet storm today reveals that, in Trump’s mind, the firing of McCabe was political. It was all about politics.
Statements made by John Dowd, Trump’s lawyer, today reveal that McCabe was fired as part of an effort to discredit Mueller.
The clowns have outed themselves as clowns.
From Ted Lieu:
From Representative Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut:
From Ezra Klein:
From Wonkette’s coverage of the firing of Andrew McCabe:
From Jeremy Stahl:
Another long Cadwalladr piece with even more information – “‘I created Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower”:
These two quotes from Wylie also stood out:
Rightwing eruptions of false stories after Conor Lamb won in Pennsylvania:
Link
Comments from Trump voters in Indianapolis:
Link
Bette Midler is great.
Carole Cadwalladr has been putting this all together – “Cambridge Analytica: links to Moscow oil firm and St Petersburg university”:
This is extremely sketchy. His talk in Russia, “New methods of communication as an effective political instrument” (!), also doesn’t appear to be related to his ostensible areas of research at Cambridge.
More clueless statements from Trump:
NYT companion piece to #210 – “Data Firm Tied to Trump Campaign Talked Business With Russians”:
From the Washington Post’s editorial board:
From Representative Bill Pascrell, a Democrat from New Jersey:
From former Attorney General Eric Holder:
***Guardian oped – “Kurdish Afrin is democratic and LGBT-friendly. Turkey is crushing it with Britain’s help”:
Everybody wants to hire McCabe.
From Representative Mark Pocan:
From Representative Seth Moulton:
Moulton’s tweet was in reference to Andrea Mitchell’s tweet, already mentioned up-thread:
“Irish Prime Minister Visits Choctaw Nation to Thank Them for Famine Donation Made 171 Years Ago”:
SC @193 on Kogan/Spectre
It is pretty much a tell that someone is up to no good. The local paper for the town where I work had an 2 page article about a scammy wedding planner who used multiple names. Someone who uses aliases doesn’t want a reputation from to catch up them.
What am I seeing?
Kyle Cheney:
On CNN’s State of the Union, “@LindseyGrahamSC says Trump better not try to fire Mueller: ‘That would be the beginning of the end of his presidency, because we are a rule of law nation’.”
“Turkish Forces Take Syrian City Afrin From Kurdish Militia”:
“Cambridge Analytica and Facebook accused of misleading MPs over data breach”:
Nicolle Wallace: “To all my republican friends who think they can sit out the Trump era and hope for great SCOTUS picks, your time is up. Trump is a disgrace who is debasing the office. You whisper it off the record and you email me your disgust. Time to stand up+speak out.”
Sen. Klobuchar: “Facebook breach: This is a major breach that must be investigated. It’s clear these platforms can’t police themselves. I’ve called for more transparency & accountability for online political ads. They say ‘trust us’. Mark Zuckerberg needs to testify before Senate Judiciary.”
“Cambridge Analytica scrambles to pull Channel 4 exposé”:
Maybe CBS could air it in the US, too, right after the Stormy Daniels interview.
It’s walkback Sunday:
“CONAWAY says House Intel Committee did NOT conclude there was no collusion between Trump campaign and Russia. “What we said is that we found no evidence of it. That’s a different statement.”
He notes they didn’t talk to several central witnesses.”
“Important
Gowdy admits Americans should not trust House Intel Comm review of Russia collusion—should trust Mueller instead:
House Commtee is ‘what you should NOT have confidence in. Have confidence in the Exec Branch investigations and if Mueller finds stuff, more power to him’.”
Sorry – #229 cont’d:
“Trey Gowdy: ‘Executive Branch investigations have more credibility, they have more tools and that’s what I think my fellow citizens ought to be waiting for and have confidence in. Not congressional investigations that are run by guys running for the Senate in California…’
Gowdy is admitting all this after Chris Wallace pressed him on the fact that the House Intelligence Committee did not interview Flynn, Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos (and Gowdy adds: we didn’t interview Manafort either).”
Perfect.
You tell ’em, Michael.
“Russian ex-spy’s poisoning in UK believed from nerve agent in car vents; at least 38 others sickened: Sources”:
Re #224 – here’s Collins’ full statement.
“U.K. Has ‘Evidence’ Russia Is Secretly Developing Nerve Agents”:
Excellent oped by Ron Klain – “I stand with Andrew McCabe”:
And it’s important to note that both Comey and McCabe are being disingenuously attacked by Republicans for actions that were adverse to Hillary Clinton, likely prompted by extraordinary and unprecedented pressure and lies from the Right and from the Russian influence campaign which pushed them to want to defend their reputations and impartiality.*
* I admit, this quote from Matthew Miller does make me laugh:
McCabe’s attorney on Trump’s pre-golf tweets this morning: “We will not be responding to each childish, defamatory, disgusting & false tweet by the President. The whole truth will come out in due course. But the tweets confirm that he has corrupted the entire process that led to Mr. McCabe’s termination and has rendered it illegitimate.
SC @235, so scary! And right now, we don’t have the USA fully onboard, fully engaged with allies in order to address the problem. Circumstances forced Trump and his toadies to put out a few “we’re with you” statements, but as with most things related to Russia, the follow-through is paltry to non-existent.
SC @236, several good points are made in that article. Stand with McCabe, even though he is not a perfect human being. Trump is the destroyer of the rule of law and of democracy. Stand against Trump.
SC @237, McCabe’s lawyer sounds like a reasonable person. Meanwhile, Trump is digging his hole deeper by attacking McCabe and the FBI (and Comey) via Twitter.
Update to #227 – Channel 4 News: “Our full undercover expose of @CamAnalytica will be broadcast tomorrow at 7pm on @Channel4News and will be online @ http://www.channel4.com/news.”
That will be 3 PM ET tomorrow (Monday) in the US. Will we be able to watch it online??? I hope so!
SC @234, I see that at least the Brits are willing to call back witnesses who lie or mislead people during their testimony (recalling Nix for example). Devin Nunes and his cohorts in the US House of Representatives fell far short of that basic measure of competence and good intent.
SC @232, the Democrats were right to not let that instance of “whataboutism” from Cambridge Analytica go unchallenged.
SC @228, it sounds like Conaway is trying to salvage a tiny sliver of his integrity with that walk-back about no-collusion statements that other Republicans, and Trump, are spewing out at a high rate. I think it is too late for Conaway to try to make himself look good, since the entire report the House Representatives released is deceitful, duplicitous.
BREAKING NEWS: Putin “won” the “election.”
SC @223:
[headdesk] That’s always Turkey’s excuse when they go after the Kurds: they lump Kurdish fighters in with “terrorists.” This time they took the extra step to insinuate that the U.S. is supporting terrorists.
Turkey, Russia, and Bashar al-Assad are winning in Syria. This is only going to get worse.
As for the plans to push the U.S. out of Syria entirely, the situation in Manbij shows us how it will be done:
I cannot imagine how U.S. special forces in Manbij must be feeling. I can’t see how this situation can be handled without just handing the city over to Turkey.
Garry Kasparov: “Alternative headline for CNN and everyone else: ‘Russian election charade distracts western press while Putin’s dictatorship continues into its 19th year’.”
Lynna:
Another quote from that article is also astonishing:
The US military doesn’t even really need Incirlik. Tell the evil Turkish regime to go fuck themselves.
Sorry! I didn’t see that you had quoted that as well.
Dictators and would-be dictators are feeling their oats this week.
Trump’s tweet storm from this morning:
Debunking from Matt Shuham:
Kushner Companies filed false documents with New York City. The companies did so in an attempt to get away with evicting tenants that the law prohibited them from evicting.
Link
Jared Kushner is an unethical asshole who is now a top advisor to the President of the United States. All the best people.
Much more at the link.
SC @243, media outlets could, at the very least, put “election” in scare quotes when discussing Putin’s “win.”
In other news, there are indications that Jeff Sessions lied to Congress:
Reuters link. More information is available at the link.
Looks like Comey is going to make some money off his literary efforts:
Link
I think the would-be dictator will not be able to censor publication, and won’t understand why he can’t stop publication, as he has no understanding of the Constitution.
What will ensue, won’t be pretty.
Lynna … @ # 248: … media outlets could, at the very least, put “election” in scare quotes when discussing Putin’s “win.”
Careful, now: if they did that, where else would they have to do it too?
Ruth Marcus – “Trump had senior staff sign nondisclosure agreements. They’re supposed to last beyond his presidency.”
I remember when this was first discussed during the election in 2016, when it was widely noted that Trump’s wish to do it clearly signaled an authoritarian bent and that putting it in action would be ridiculously improper. Any such agreements, if they exist, are unenforceable and insane. And the story suggests that people were pressured to sign them by Priebus and…McGahn. As Norm Eisen argues:
“New: @ACLU responds to Trump requiring WH staff to sign nondisclosures. ‘Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements. These so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable’, per Ben Wizner, ACLU’s speech and privacy director.”
Reminder:
“Tonight, we’ll take you inside the world of Cambridge Analytica after our reporters went undercover as prospective clients.
The full story tonight at 19:00 GMT on Channel 4 – and at http://channel4.com/news.”
That’s 3 PM ET in the US, but I fear we won’t be able to watch it, at least not live.
“The Latest: Police say men hurt in Austin blast had bikes”:
Mueller 2002 video flashback.
Yes, Trump is still angry and desperate. This morning Hair Furor tweeted:
That’s it. That’s the entirety of the tweet.
The Trump administration’s efforts to fire civil servants viewed as disloyal are not exactly a secret, but now we are seeing more proof of this illegal effort:
Link
Nicely done:
https://twitter.com/tracybrisson
Photos available at the link.
Follow-up to comment 259.
https://twitter.com/davidehrlich/status/975576898108444672/photo/1
“What Michael Flynn Could Tell the Russia Investigators”:
Much more at the link.
“No 10 ‘very concerned’ over Facebook data breach by Cambridge Analytica”:
* She’s actually opened an investigation – see #187 above.
Alex Stamos keeps digging.
Cable news has to stop using chyrons like “Trump heading to New Hampshire to unveil tougher opioid plan.” Tougher than what? What’s tough about it? Who wanted “tough”? Is it tough on drug companies? Trump has done nothing about this problem, and in fact has backed and enacted policies that compound it and increase suffering and oppression. The people he’s put in place to lead efforts to deal with it give new meaning to the phrase “adding insult to injury.”
“On Telegram, RT editor Simonyan writes that Putin ‘used to simply be our president and he could be changed. But now he is our leader [vozhd’]. And we will not allow him to be changed’.”
Re #265: “To be fair (?), her rant is a lot weirder than this, quasi-implies she wishes Putin weren’t the vozhd, and says the West is to blame for it all. Because we ‘made them choose between liberalism and patriotism’…somehow.”
I’ll try to find a full transcript.
WaPo – “Putin’s reelection [sic] takes him one step closer to becoming Russian leader for life”:
“Israeli PM @netanyahu congratulates Russian President @PutinRF_Eng on his election victory. ‘I greatly appreciate the personal dialogue between us and am looking forward to working closely together’.”
What’s a little “maybe it was not Russians but Jews who happen to have Russian citizenship who interfered in the US elections” between corrupt autocratic friends?
“From @NBCFirstRead: ‘FBI, Planned Parenthood, and Mueller are the most popular political figures/institutions in the NBC/WSJ poll’.”
From Adam Schiff, in reference to the Republican-led House Intelligence “investigation” being prematurely ended, and a bogus report being issued:
Update on the NRA in Florida: the organization is taking revenge:
Link
All the best people.
Link
Incompetently firing McCabe:
Why didn’t Jeff Sessions or Christopher Wray call McCabe? Weird.
The ultimate answer to why this is all taking place:
Link
From Wonkette’s coverage of the part Cambridge Analytica played in the Trump campaign:
Facebook’s stock price is currently in a deep slide downwards.
UPDATE: The head of communications for Channel 4 News just tweeted that the Cambridge Analytica report will be avaiable at their site – here – to UK and non-UK viewers beginning in a minute (7 PM GMT/3 PM ET).
Trump just said that sanctuary cities have to be eliminated because they are responsible of the opioid crisis. He wants to block all federal funds that go to sanctuary cities. He said that and lots more, like that sanctuary cities are protecting gang members (not true) and other lies.
He’s on an extended rant full of phrases like this: “the damage is huge,” “we have to get a lot smarter,” “we need tough guys,” and so forth. “We can be nice and we can be weak and then we won’t have a country left.” “We are seeking tougher penalties … and that penalty is going to be the death penalty.”
Trump is speaking in New Hampshire, laying out his plan to end the opioid crisis, (See SC’s comment 264, which raises some of the questions about Trump’s bogus “toughness.”)
It’s saying not available in my area, but I think I found it on YT – here.
SC @275, well, that was interesting.
Nix sits there and tells the prospective client that Cambridge Analytica is willing to bribe opposition candidates and record the bribe as evidence of corruption. He says that CA can send very good looking Ukranian girls to the opposition candidate’s home. He says that it doesn’t matter if “news” stories posted online are true, only that “they are believed.”
After all that, Nix and his cronies claimed that they often have conversations with potential clients that are meant to reveal any illegal or unethical intent on the part of the client.
Who is going to buy that bullshit?
When Cambridge Analytica personnel say that they suss out the fears, even the unconscious fears of voters and then aim content at them that stokes those fears, well that sounds like Trump’s modus operandi, only done with more digital finesse.
Follow-up to comment 272.
From Steve Benen:
All the best people.
“#CambridgeAnalyticaUncovered” is now trending on Twitter. I think there’s going to be another segment – about the US – tomorrow.
Here’s the Guardian companion piece: “Cambridge Analytica boasts of dirty tricks to swing elections.”
Their attitude toward voters and the public is sickening. It’s all about covertly manipulating people through fear.
That was precious.
Cadwalladr:
An exclusive from Alice Ollstein:
Cadwalladr: “What is Facebook doing at Cambridge Analytica’s offices tonight??? Good question from MP @DamianCollins. This should be a matter for the authorities, he says. Exactly. Also #WheresZuck?”
More nonsense and hyper-bloviating from Trump’s opioid speech today:
Link
I would like to see the specific plan when it comes to filing lawsuits against drug companies. That sound like another vague promise from Trump, a promise that will not be kept or that will be kept by taking the least action possible … all for show.
Tweet o’ the day.
Republicans 2018: It’s No Good Fighting an Election Campaign on the Facts.
And likely an attempt to get drug companies to give him money.
Good news: “Supreme Court Rejects GOP Plea To Keep Gerrymandered House Map In Pennsylvania.”
Two bits of trivia (both entirely from memory) on the McCabe firing: First — and this is just pure coincidence, but amusing — Watergate’s “Deep Throat”, Mark Felt, was also FBI № 2. Second, on the pension: My recollection is most(? all?) federal government pensions accrue over the lifetime employment history with the government, and regardless of gaps, changes of position, etc. As such, and assuming some exception doesn’t (legitimately) apply, the idea of (re-)hiring McCabe for at least the two days or whatever should fly.
Cadwalladr: “If you are watching the Cambridge Analytica story unfold, please please support our journalism. We’ve fought off 3 legal threats from CA & 1 from Facebook. It’s a whole year’s work & we gave it to @Channel4News & @nytimes for the greater good. We need you!”
Link to donate at my link.
Update on abortion restrictions in Mississippi:
Link
Trump promised a big policy speech on opioids, but couldn’t stay focused.
Update on deal (no deal) for dreamers:
Link
Follow-up to @103, The UK’s hair furor worship department, the Home Office, has reversed its illegal attempt to deport two Mexicans scholars, Home Office U-turn on Durham University academics’ deportation. And as is typical, no apology or explanation.
The UK’s nazis may be about to go Ker-Splat! Ukip on brink of bankruptcy after £175,000 legal bill: “Party hit with bill for its part in libel action involving one of its MEPs and three Labour MPs”. Apparently, they deliberately dragged out a losing lawsuit until after the election in the belief that keeping the case unsettled would harm their opponents. When the nazis finally did loose the case, their “brilliant” strategy meant the costs had ballooned enormously, now to the point where it is suspected they won’t be able to pay. However, this is still, apparently, only a fraction of the total costs, the article suggests the winning side has a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.
Correction to me@296: I retract the last sentence,
“However, this is still, apparently, only a fraction of the total costs, the article suggests the winning side has a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.”I got the names of the individuals confused. It is the nazi MEP, who lost the case, and not the winners of the case, who also has a “a legal bill about three times as much as the nazis must pay.” Apologies for the confusion.Update to #263 – “Facebook Security Chief Said to Leave After Clashes Over Disinformation”:
Channel 4 video:
As of a little while ago, she was looking for a judge…
Sen. Feinstein: “I’m asking @ChuckGrassley to join me in seeking documents and testimony from Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, whistleblower Christopher Wylie, Professor Aleksandr Kogan and Trump campaign officials.”
Thank you. FFS, 60 Minutes.
“Sen. @timkaine issues statement in support of Sanders-Lee bill ending US support for the Saudi coalition in #Yemen against the Houthis. A floor vote is likely this week and requires only 51 senators to pass.”
OK I give up – Alex Stamos: “Despite the rumors, I’m still fully engaged with my work at Facebook. It’s true that my role did change. I’m currently spending more time exploring emerging security risks and working on election security.”
This is fucking ridiculous. Who the hell is going to be accountable to provide answers from this company?
Does anyone really believe Jared Kushner “built a custom geo-location tool that plotted the location density of about 20 voter types over a live Google Maps interface”?
In any case, Vogel and others are spectacularly missing the point.
Further to #304 – you don’t actually have to be that innovative or sophisticated if you’re cheating.
Daniel Dale’s livetweeting of Trumps opioid speech today. (See Lynna @ #s 276 and 285 above.) This is really tragic – desperate people actually believed this charlatan’s promises about how he would fix things. We’re 14 months in. I don’t want to think about how many deaths could have been prevented had he not been in office and how many more are still to come. And then there are all of the social harms caused by the revival of the worst drug-war tropes and policies, disastrously combined with Trump’s and the Republicans’ corruption.
Further to #304 – you don’t actually have to be that innovative or sophisticated if you’re cheating.
It’s like, is Michele Ferrari a genius sports doctor? No! He’s a great cheater, with all of the damage that entails to athletes and sports.
It’s Farcebork — so no-one — as has been the case for over two years now!
For example, from Facebook employs psychologist whose firm sold data to Cambridge Analytica:
The above-excerpted article points out the Grauniad alerted Farcebork to the Kogan / GSR / Cambridge Analytica antics in December 2015 (Ted Cruz using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users), but as previously-mentioned, Farcebork appears to have done nothing and also possibly hide / lied about the activity. Whilst that 2015 report did not name Chancellor† it did name both Dr Aleksandr Kogan and the firm he and Chancellor had set up: Global Science Research (GSR), who is quoted as claiming it “owns a massive data pool of 40+ million individuals across the United States — for each of whom we have generated detailed characteristic and trait profiles”.
† Joseph Chancellor, “one of two founding directors of Global Science Research (GSR), the company that harvested Facebook data using a personality app under the guise of academic research and later shared the data with Cambridge Analytica”, and “is still working as a researcher at Facebook’s Menlo Park headquarters in California”.
To clarify further :), Ferrari is/was innovative and sophisticated…at cheating. That’s a different claim from suggesting he was innovative and sophisticated in sports medicine. CA can be a shit data analysis and strategic communications company in the sense these are generally understood, and an innovative data stealing and strategic cheating company.
Update to #281 – a woman whose name I didn’t catch confirmed to Chris Hayes that the next installment, about the US and Trump, will air tomorrow evening (UK) and afternoon (US).
“Russian scientist Leonid Rink has confirmed work on #Novichok agents was done at the Shikhany chemical weapons base near Saratov. Says the Novichok-5 variant was weaponized. Important news via the official RIA Novosti news agency.”
A package has exploded at a FedEx facility about an hour outside of Austin. Fortunately, there are no serious injuries reported.
Cadwalladr:
Wow – the NYT has updated the article @ #298 above with a lot more revealing information: “Alex Stamos, Facebook Data Security Chief, To Leave Amid Outcry.”
This part is kind of perfect:
LOL – “[sigh]”
MSNBC is reporting that there’s been a shooting at a high school in Maryland.
“Ted Cruz under fire in Cambridge Analytica scandal; firm targeted voters with data from 50M Facebook users”:
Channel 4 News:
Again, that’s 3 PM ET in the US. I hope/assume they’ll put it on YouTube again like they did yesterday.
I’ve been thinking about this long and hard: is there anyone out there who was involved with the Trump campaign who did not break the law before or during the campaign? Is there any business with which they had close dealings who did not break the law? The only person I can come up with who may be relatively clean (and I do mean relatively) from a criminal aspect is the idiot Bannon. It seems like everyone else, from Cambridge Annalytica to the company selling MAGA paraphernalia, from Flynn to Kushner to, well, everyone involved int he campaign, they are a bunch of criminals.
On another note, I have become so cynical that when I hear any candidate talk about being a law and order candidate, the first question in my mind is, what crime has he/she committed?
Oggie @319: Bannon was accused of spousal abuse, but he got away with it by threatening his spouse so effectively that she didn’t show up for the court hearing.
Hope Hicks may not have been a criminal.
Oh, FFS.
I didn’t know Nunes was a comedian. Gotta pause here. Laughing too much to continue.
Link
From Steve Benen:
Let’s pause again for peals of incredulous laughter.
Update on the school shooting in Maryland: The school resource officer fired one shot at the shooter, who was armed with a handgun. No word yet on if the resource officer killed the shooter, or if the shooter took his own life (simultaneous shots, apparently). One 16 year old girl was critically wounded and is in the hospital. One 14 year old boy was wounded and is now in “good condition” in the hospital.
In this case we do not have a student armed with an AR-15 type rifle. In this case we have a resource office who ran towards the sound of the shots, and who did engage the shooter.
This might be too much irony to bear.
Link
Fox News hurt Michael Avenatti’s feelings:
Link
In terms of media coverage, Avenatti is winning and Trump is losing. Avenatti also made the point that Trump was aware that Stormy Daniels was physically threatened. Avenatti would not provide details.
As you may already know, government funding runs out … again … this Friday. The Republican-dominated Congress is fighting to keep as culture-war provisions in the omnibus funding bill as possible, while throwing out as many good, bipartisan reforms as possible.
One example: Congress is going to keep the system it now uses to pay sexual harassment settlements with taxpayer money.
Link
An example of a poison pill being used to quash health insurance reform:
Sounds great! Right? Not so fast.
Here’s the tie-in to the omnibus funding bill:
Link
From CNN :
Paul Ryan says:
Which is all well and good except for the fact that we have a President who is absolutely incapable of thinking about what will happen tomorrow. He is incapable of making any plans. He is incapable of coherent strategy (hell, he’s incapable of coherency). Which means that either someone in the White House is engaged in some very, very, very, very, very, very wishful thinking, or Trump himself communicated this information to Ryan but, not to worry, Trump will change his mind three times before he turns of Fox News this afternoon. After he watches Fox, who knows? Trump doesn’t know, so there is no way in hell that anyone in the White House, much less Ryan, knows what Trump will do.
According to news from the Kremlin, Trump called Putin to congratulate him on having been re-elected.
Of course not, why would Trump bring up something that makes Putin look bad?
Link
Sarah Huckabee Sanders confirmed the call after reporters found the news on Russian media sites.
Trump announced that he will meet with Putin soon.
The Trump administration cut funding for teen pregnancy prevention programs.
NBC News link
From Laura Clawson:
The NRA continues to go after the survivors of the Parkland, Florida shooting:
Link
The head of a Christian university compares LGBTQ people to ISIS:
Link
Oh, FFS.
Link
Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell have not endorsed the second special counsel idea … yet.
Follow-up to comment 326.
Update on the funding legislation:
Link
It looks like Trump will be going to court to face Summer Zervos.
Link
Follow-up to comment 328.
From John McCain:
Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked during the press briefing today why Trump was now going after Mueller by name in his tweets. Sanders answered:
More lawsuits against Trump:
New York Times link
John Dean thinks “Trump is Nixon on steroids.”
Link
Stephen Colbert thinks Trump is gearing up to fire Mueller. Scroll down for the video, which is about 8 minutes long.
Colbert’s ridicule of Trump’s phrase “hardened Democrats” is particularly funny.
French ex-President Sarkoführer is being held for questioning over a long-running claim Libyan Kookdafi illegally financed the 2007 campaign, Nicolas Sarkozy in police custody over Gaddafi allegations. It’s a long and involved tale: “Investigators are examining claims that Gaddafi’s regime secretly gave Sarkozy €50m overall for the 2007 campaign. Such a sum would be more than double the legal campaign funding limit, which was €21m at the time. The alleged payments would also violate French rules against foreign financing and declaring the source of campaign funds.”
The child rapists in the Vatican claim there is another group of kooks even more extreme than them, Catholic Church cuts ties with Texas’s largest pro-life group:
March 20 must be laugh-a-lots day. Ye Pffft! of All Knowledge notes today is when “The Republican Party of the United States was organized [… in 1854]” (and is also the day Isaac Newton died in 1726), challenging that hypothesis.
Most likely it’s about money (TRTL is “well-funded”, which is as effective as attracting bishops as young children): Follow the money!
Here’s today’s Channel 4 undercover Cambridge Analytica report.
Uncoincidentally, Alexander Nix has been suspended as CEO pending an investigation.
First Dog on the Moon in the Grauniad, Brenda the Civil Disobedience Penguin on Cambridge Analytica: the real crime was getting caught (cartoon): “CA cunningly used Facebook data to determine how people might vote. Facebook were all like and then wandered off”.
Oggie @ #319:
Bannon is up to his ears in Cambridge Analytica. He came up with the name (because he’s a pretentious pseudo-intellectual who was obsessed with conveying a connection to real scholarship). He brought in the Mercers’ money. He is/was a Vice President and board member.
Because of course. Here’s more about Emerdata Ltd.: “Cambridge Analytica executives created a company with the Executive Director & Deputy Chairman of Erik Prince’s Frontier Services Group.”
Re #s 344 and 345: Carole Cadwalladr points out that “…Cambridge Analytica exists only on paper. Alexander Nix is CEO of SCL Elections. From which he hasn’t been suspended.” It appears the suspension, like everything else about CA, is a sham.
I’m not sure how far the fame of Jacob Rees-Mogg has crossed the Atlantic. He’s a particularly repulsive right-wing Tory, who has been touted recently as a future Tory Prime Minister, an arch-Brexiteer who opposes abortion even in the case of rape, among other reactionary stances. He has been telling Theresa May that “tyrants must be stood up to” since the Salisbury nerve agent attack, but it turns out that a company in which he is a partner – and from which he receives nearly £15,000 a month for 30 hours’ work – has invested £60,000,000 in a Russian bank which has been under EU sanctions since 2014. This is not illegal, but the hypocrisy is breathtaking.
“Exclusive: Mark Zuckerberg AWOL From Facebook’s Data Leak Damage Control Session”:
Tweet o’ the day.
“An ‘Ashamed’ Fox News Commentator Just Quit The ‘Propaganda Machine'”:
The whole email is at the link. This is the context for that last quote
(He’s not rethinking his smearing of Obama, of course. Or pondering why this “sudden” change occurred.)
“Sarah Sanders is asked whether the Russian election was free and fair: ‘We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate’.”
Video clip at the link.
More shenanigans at Hud. The Grauniad recently reported on a Secretive religious charity run by top US housing officials raises questions (“GJH Global Ministries, which made its website private after inquiries by the Guardian, does not appear to have a clear purpose”). This seems to be a scam run by Naved Jafry (resigned, see @60), and “Johnson Joy, the chief information officer at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud)”, albeit exactly what that scam is is unclear. Now Mr Joy has also resigned, Senior housing department official loses job after allegations of corruption:
Ms Hubbard is not the official who blew the whistle on the $31,000 dining set, that was Helen Foster.
Jafry is connected to Accel Corp, possibly as a subcontractor.
All teh bestest peoples!
@ 352
Testifying before the House Appropriations Committee Tuesday Ben Carson said that it was his wife, Candy, who purchased the $31,000 dining set for his office (with taxpayer money.) Nice guy, throw the wife under the bus. And he didn’t mention the staffer who was demoted for refusing to authorize the expense because there was a $5,000 limit on office improvements.
Ok, brace yerselves. After all the bad news, and even hair furor, a real disaster has been reported. Fortunately, headdesking is an unlikely reaction here, but carefully positioned napkins and bibs and serviettes are suggested. Also, note carefully where the knife is.
French scoff at claim burgers are outselling classic ham baguettes:
I can believe that bit about non-fast “food” chains with le burger, most of the really good restaurants in the area do exactly that. Excepting some odd variations (e.g., le calamarburger), I’ve not tried any of them — I don’t really care for the dish.
The article goes on to note Monsieur Boutboul said “And for the last three years, there’s been this craze for the burger.” That also strikes me as plausible, I don’t recall seeing le burger on seemingly every menu just a few years ago. Indeed, France24 reports (Au revoir, baguette! France goes mad for le burger), “just 30 percent of the burgers were sold in fast food joints, with the majority sold at restaurants with full table service.”
Last August, France24 produced a short video touching on this calamity, Malbouffe: understanding junk food à la française:
The good news is a new fromagerie has just opened in the village. First reviews from the mildly deranged penguin are encouraging.
“Trump’s national security advisers warned him not to congratulate Putin. He did it anyway.”:
This opinion column in the Grauniad touches on another hair furorian scandal-in-the-making, If the Department of Veterans Affairs head is sacked, the Koch brothers will rejoice:
Related, the Washington Post reports, Veterans health-care bill hits roadblock, jeopardizing one of Trump’s legislative priorities:
Just last week the Washington Post claimed, Trump eyes ‘Fox & Friends’ personality Pete Hegseth to take over Veterans Affairs (Washington Post edits in {curly braces}):
And we come full circle, back to the Kochroaches.
Oh fer feck’s sake! Why all the charade, just call Putin directly.
Apparently hair furor has been twittering, (Sen Johnny Isakson is the Committee’s chairman.)
(Contrary to the opinion column in the Grauniad, the last-excerpted Washington Post article claims Rick Perry “told reporters Wednesday that he is not interested in the [VA] job and that he is not considered a candidate.” I assume he is lying.)
“Federal judge scolds Kobach for violating her trust at contempt hearing”:
MSNBC reporting another explosion in Austin. A man injured, but injuries not life threatening.
One package was intercepted this morning. Possible surveillance video of the package sender.
An alarming variant on , US legislators worried by FBI term (Al Jazeera edits in {curly braces}):
By that “reasoning”, then the reaction of the St Louis
policegoon’s union to the Rams football “hands up, don’t shoot” protest is a threat to quite a lot of people (St Louis Rams Players’ Display Is Condemned by Police Association, Dec-2014), “A spokesman for the police officers association, Jeff Roorda, made clear that the group would continue to speak up. In his statement, he said that .”I hope that one will provide the necessary lead to catch the perpetrator(s).
Update from TRMS, tonight’s device was incendiary rather than explosive, in a Goodwill Store, from a donation bag.
Dang, I left off 5 bags of the Redheads clothes at a local Goodwill donation center today.
James Comey will be interviewed about his upcoming book on 4/19 on TRMS. Rachael is very excited.
The bombing suspect in Austin is dead following a confrontation with police during which he detonated a device inside his car. He was reportedly 24 and white. I wonder if the WH knew this – they certainly knew that the targets were primarily black and Latina – when they declared yesterday that the serial bomber had no connections to terrorism.
“Bannon oversaw Cambridge Analytica’s collection of Facebook data, according to former employee”:
* It’s interesting how their “anti-establishment” sentiment fades when it comes to Putin, who’s held a dictatorial grip on power for 19 years. His rubber-stamp Duma, fawning state media, and subservient legal system evidently don’t constitute an establishment.
“Cambridge Analytica offered £1m bribe to turn election”:
(I’m not registered and so can’t read the full article. I’d like to learn the details of the racist email.)
Priorities in Trumpland: “Per @jeffzeleny, John Kelly is furious about the ‘DO NOT CONGRATULATE’ leak. Plans to address it today. A leak that only a small group of people would know about.”
“Former Kentucky Creation Museum employee busted for possession of C-4 explosives and arms cache.”
I approve of how this story pounds “Florida man.”
The Senate Intel election security hearing is on live (started at 9:30 AM ET) on C-SPAN3. Jeh Johnson is testifying right now.
Livestreaming here.
Oh – I guess it’s one of those with a panel of witnesses. They’re listed at the link @ #368.
Dead Austin terrorist bombing suspect.
Emma Nottingham from the British embassy speaking about the nerve-agent attack and Russian propaganda at the Russian Foreign Ministry briefing.
Patrick Wintour: “Whoever in the Russian ministry of foreign affairs thought it would be a good idea to broadcast the Skripal briefing with foreign diplomats live is either brave, or likely to find promotion elusive.”
“Facebook scandal: I am being used as scapegoat – academic who mined data”:
Bullshit. He’s an academic who collected this data from people who falsely believed it was being used for academic research (and tens of millions of their friends, who didn’t consent to this collection at all) and then gave or sold it to a shady political influence operation (he let them write the terms of service for the app? how the hell did he get human-subjects approval?). While he was connected to a Russian state university and receiving Russian state funding for seriously creepy research, which went unlisted on his 10-page CV.
None of this makes FB any less culpable, but bullshit.
SC @345, this what I thought would happen. The criminals change the company name, move to a new location (or locations) and then carry on as usual. Several people have made the point that the Cambridge Analytica database(s) still exist. There are multiple copies out there in the digital world, according to the whistleblower, Wylie.
So, yeah, the criminals are already up and running after putting on an updated disguise. They have, no doubt, big plans for the 2018 and 2020 elections in the USA. I’m sure they are still hard at work.
The connection with Erik Prince is disconcerting. JFC.
Lynna @ #373, Siegelman is continuously updating her post, and it’s something.
Follow-up to 373.
They didn’t even change locations! They still have the same address as Nix’s office. Sorry I missed that detail earlier.
SC @374, oh yeah. Of course there are connections to Paul Manafort and multiple connections to the Mercer family. Looking more and more like an international gang of criminals.
It sounds more and more like Kogan acted, willingly, as a cutout for CA (and possibly others) to gain access to the FB data. The article @ #189 above says that “Kogan…had a licence from Facebook to collect profile information, but it was for research purposes only.” In the report @ #372, Kogan says that “in terms of the usage of Facebook data they [CA] wrote the terms of service for the app. They provided the legal advice that this was all appropriate.” He also claims he didn’t make money from it, which makes no sense if this was a business venture unconnected to his academic research. I don’t know who originally contacted whom, but the scheme is extraordinarily sketchy.
LOL.
Republicans are still really upset over the Supreme Court ruling that killed their infamously gerrymandered district map for the state of Pennsylvania.
Link</a<
Follow-up to comments 272 and 280.
From the Washington Post:
From an earlier Washington Post article:
Recent Trumpian moves to go it alone:
– announcing tariffs without telling anyone first
– congratulating Putin
– deciding to meet with Kim Jong-un
Long ago Trump announced, via Twitter, that he was banning transgender people from serving in the U.S. military. That didn’t work out so well for him.
And there is this classic (from an Associated Press report):
From Steve Benen:
“MS Gov Phil Bryant signs 15-week abortion ban, wants Mississippi to be ‘safest place in America for an unborn child’. MS ranks 50th in health of women, 50th in health of children, 50th in health of infants, 1st in infant mortality. #priorities”
Another Trumpian move to bully a government agency, and to take control of media outlets.:
Link
It is worth noting that Breitbart News has been fulminating against the Voice of America and against Radio Free Europe, which are run by the BBG.
Trump’s off-the-rails tweets from this morning:
From an earlier (June, 2017) article on the Lawfare blog discussing just how wrong Dershowitz can be:
Much more at the link.
Representative Louie Gohmert of Tennessee, was true to his reputation as the dumbest man in Congress today:
Link
All the best people.
NY Times link
86% of the Republican National Committee’s venue rental and catering payments last month were paid to Trump properties.
From the Washington Post:
Follow-up to comment 386.
20,000 Republicans just voted for an actual Nazi
Crooked Media has chosen a set of finalists for its Trump portrait competition. They’re very good. You can vote at the link.
Trump touted Cambridge Analytica in October of 2016:
“They” in this case are Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica.
Mark Conditt, the 24-year-old white man who terrorized Austin, Texas with a series of bombings, posted screeds against same-sex marriage and against abortion. The posts are mostly from earlier in Conditt’s life, when he was 17, so the content should be taken with a grain of salt.
Link
Jeff Sessions is kissing up to Trump again. Sessions is promoting the death penalty for drug dealers.
Link
I recommend reading the article @ #372 and this new one
“Academic in Facebook storm worked on Russian ‘dark’ personality project”
alongside this amazing piece from shortly after the election
“The Data That Turned the World Upside Down.”
From Lynna’s #387 above:
In one month!
Wow.
Which the RNC is now paying for.
Here’s Zuckerberg’s full statement. It’s pathetic, and the timeline curiously leaves out the 2011 consent decree (for possibly violating which the FTC is now investigating them).
New from ABC:
“EXCLUSIVE: Fired FBI official authorized criminal probe of Sessions, sources say”: “Nearly a year before Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired senior FBI official Andrew McCabe for what Sessions called a ‘lack of candor’, McCabe oversaw a federal criminal investigation into whether Sessions lacked candor when testifying before Congress about contacts with Russian operatives, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.”
“Special Counsel studies Trump campaign ties to Cambridge Analytics, sources say”: “Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team for the last several weeks has had a growing interest to better understand the relationship between the campaign, the Republican National Committee, and Cambridge Analytica, sources tell ABC News.”
It seems to me Cambridge University has some serious questions to answer. From the second link @ #393:
From the first link:
WTF?
Trump:
Matthew Miller: “Saying Russia can help solve problems with Ukraine is on par with Trump’s proposal for a joint cybersecurity unit with Russia.”
Is the light starting to dawn, Republicans? This is his foreign policy: not acting in the interests of the US, but as an asset for Putin. By any means necessary: lying, firing critics of the Kremlin, betraying and smearing our allies, publicly trashing and sabotaging intelligence and law enforcement agencies trying to hold Putin to account and guard against attacks, ignoring the plain advice of his top security and diplomatic aides, slow-walking and attempting to remove sanctions, cheering autocracy, ignoring chemical attacks and extrajudicial murders in allied countries, undermining the statements and policies of US agencies, anything. Appeasing Putin and acting on his regime’s behalf is a top priority and a necessity.
Important – “Cambridge Analytica’s ruthless bid to sway the vote in Nigeria”:
So far, subsequent information seems to match what Nix said to the undercover investigators.
So we now have reports about what SCL did in St. Kitts and Nevis and in Nigeria. I noticed a mention of Brazil in the undercover video – hope more will be revealed about that.
“Saudi Crown Prince Boasted That Jared Kushner Was ‘In His Pocket'”:
Harry Davies: “834 days after I first informed Facebook about the Cambridge Analytica privacy breach, Mark Zuckerberg responds.”
“On January 17, 2015, leaked health records of (now) President Buhari were published in Nigeria showing he was suffering prostrate [sic] cancer. Was it hacked by Israelis working with Cambridge Analytica?”
“How a Witness for Mueller and a Republican Donor Influenced the White House for Gulf Rulers”:
If anyone would know how to groom someone, it would be Nader.
Bannon keeps popping up.
snow
snow
snow
go away
snow
Chris Wylie: “Accepting invitation to testify before US House Intelligence Committee, US House Judiciary Committee & UK Parliament Digital Committee. It’s time for our democratic institutions to take control.”
13:37 – “He’s Thomas Paine on Twitter now.” Still laughing.
Conor Lamb: “Just got off the phone with my opponent, @RickSaccone4PA, who congratulated me & graciously conceded last Tuesday’s election. I congratulate Mr. Saccone for a close, hard-fought race & wish him the best. Ready to be sworn in & get to work for the people of #PA18.”
Happy Nowruz!
“Trump’s remark to Putin that they could meet soon caught White House advisers by surprise”:
What the hell is this?:
I’m an atheist. I’m not only an atheist – I’m anti-faith and a vocal opponent of the Catholic Church. That said, I’ve also argued several times over the past few years about the good fortune that Francis is the Pope, because things could be very different. White evangelicals in the US (and increasingly evangelicals in Latin America) are a far-Right political force. The Orthodox Church in Russia is a far-Right political force. There’s a powerful rightwing Catholic contingent in the US and Europe. There could easily have been another Pius XII. But Francis is not that, and the rightwing forces within the church despise him for it. This is a report about one priest in Poland, who’s been censured, and it shouldn’t be overblown:
Still, this is a church representative wishing death on the Pope because he’s not hateful enough. He represents bishops in the US and many rightwing Christians around the world. They have less loyalty to a church than they do to a rightwing ideology and to political power.
By the way, the only reason the CNN report @ #412 exists is that they’re weirdly and annoyingly obsessed with obsequious religious coverage.
Truth.
“NYC agency investigating more than a dozen Kushner buildings”:
“And I think it’s gonna be a long long time
‘Till touch down brings me round again to find
I’m not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I’m a pocket man…”
Whatever the fuck happened to “Godless Communism?” I can’t swing a dead cat in a supposedly Left-leaning forum and not hit a dozen worshippers of Proto-hippie Jesus who get all offended by my atheism.
Explain to me again why these superstitious, magical-thinking, sub-human shits are supposed to be my “allies?”
Cambridge Analytica has personal links to the UK Conservative Party. How substantial these are or were, what the previous government contracts with SCL (the parent company) were, and whether there are any at present (May carefully said she “wasn’t aware” of any – has she asked?)remain to be seen.
This is an absolute outrage – “Charges Have Been Dropped Against Most Turkish Officers in D.C. Clash”:
It’s also telling that the WSJ reporters reached out to “an attorney who provided some free legal advice to defendants in the case” and “an attorney and co-chairman of the Turkish-American group that organized pro-Turkey demonstrators who clashed with anti-Erdogan protesters,” but couldn’t be bothered to talk to a single victim or legislator who called attention to the attack.
They also failed to note that the attack is on video.
And Turkey is not a fucking “key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic State.” The Kurds are a key US ally in the fight against ISIS, and Erdogan is both helping ISIS and attacking the Kurds.
Bill Browder, yesterday:
“BREAKING: This afternoon the parliament of Jersey began debates on whether to pass a Magnitsky Act in Jersey, which would mirror the U.K. Magnitsky Act….
If Jersey goes through with this and enacts a Magnitsky Act, this would be a tectonic negative shift in the fortunes of Russian human rights violators because they hold significant assets in Jersey.”
LOL.
WaPo: “John Dowd, a personal attorney for President Trump handling the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, has resigned, according to three people familiar with the decision.
Dowd’s resignation came several days after Trump added Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who was pushing an aggressive new strategy, to his team.”
SC @398, that’s a great summary. Thank you.
SC @419 and 421, it’s as if Michael Flynn was still in charge.
tomh @424, I didn’t think it was possible, but Trump is downgrading an already low-quality legal team. It will be interesting to see how that works out for him.
Follow-up to comments 424 and 425.
From Steve Benen, a summary of Trump’s legal team:
From Joe Biden:
Trump responded:
NBC News link
Trump is 71 years old. Biden is 75 years old, and in better shape than Trump. Still, I don’t think a fist fight between these two is a good idea. I understand Biden’s impulse, but, as Steve Benen said:
So on the same day the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, despite clear evidence that witnesses have misled them and concealed crucial information, shut down their Russia investigation in what will go down as one of the most shameful episodes in legislative history, Damian Collins re-calls Alexander Nix to testify before his parliamentary committee.
This piece about Kogan/Spectre’s longstanding relationship with Facebook, “Facebook gave data about 57bn friendships to academic,” is very interesting. He conducted academic research jointly with FB, and one of his colleagues from the department who became his partner in GSR (the company that worked with CA) now works for FB. The behavior of the department in this scandal seems bizarre and unethical. Part of the explanation could be that they’ve long been getting money from FB.
Lynna @ #427, this whole story is making me angry. They’ve had long discussions about it on CNN and MSNBC today, and no coverage at all of the reports @ #401 or #404. Like you, I’m sure Biden meant well, but all he’s doing is repeating a stupid thing he said in the past, which helps Trump create another distraction. The Me Too movement is about women speaking out, changing the culture around sexual harassment and assault, and changing the systems, policies, and institutions that protect harassers and rapists and silence women. The last thing anyone needs is for the conversation to be about men threatening to beat up other men who hurt women. FFS.
That’s good news: “Sergeant Nick Bailey has been discharged from Salisbury Hospital, more than two weeks after he was exposed to nerve agent. ‘It really has been completely surreal’, he said.”
“Pa. Supreme Court Chief Justice to impeachment lawmakers: ‘Threats of impeachment directed against Justices because of their decision in a particular case are an attack upon an independent judiciary, which is an essential component of our constitutional plan of government’.”
It’s getting hard to say which state Republicans are most evil. NC, WI, AL, PA,… – all striving for the title.
Hee.
(Reminds me of this account.)
Ari Melber will have an interview with Chris Wylie on his MSNBC show tonight at 6 PM ET.
SC @430, agreed. I’m glad you noted that Biden was referencing something he said in the past. I didn’t make that clear. Also, Biden did say, “I shouldn’t have said that.” Still, no excuse.
Trump telling Biden not to threaten people while he blatantly threatened Biden is just too much. Trump always threatens people. That’s how he operates. Let’s not stoop to Trump’s level.
And, yes, that story is taking up too much oxygen.
@431, so glad to hear that Bailey survived the nerve agent attack.
Re #432 – as if on cue, NC Republicans remind us why they’re always in contention.
The stock market is headed down, down, down. Currently over 600 points down. This is in response to Trump signing new China tariffs.
Link
Follow-up to comments 326 and 333.
Link
I like Nancy Pelosi’s comment. I think she is calling it like it is.
A few of the particulars:
I do wonder in agencies headed by Trump appointees will mange to spend money allotted for election security effectively and promptly.
Wow – the Dow has dropped more than 700 points.
From CNN President Jeff Zucker:
We are likely to see two more special elections soon. A Wisconsin judge has ruled that Governor Scott Walker has to hold elections to fill two GOP seats that were recently vacated. Scott was refusing to hold those elections, probably out of fear that Democrats would flip them.
Link
Kudos to Eric Holder.
Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey commented on Jared Kushner’s handling of U.S. foreign policy:
Link
All the best people:
Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard equality called “toxic.”
Link
Racist much?
More detail is available at the link.
Yeah, we know Trump doesn’t read, but JFC!
https://twitter.com/johnrobertsFox/status/976509953010749440
More on the Biden-Trump fight:
https://twitter.com/pbump/status/976854241640886272
From former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke:
Leave it to David Clarke to find an opportunity to insinuate that Joe Biden is gay.
:).
Facts about serial bomber Mark Conditt:
Link
Despite that evidence, the Austin police chief said:
Because he played both football and baseball.
SC @446. Awww, cute. And a good way to put things into perspective.
In other news, here are a few more details related to Mark Conditt’s background:
Link
From Sue Halpern, writing for The New Yorker:
More at the link.
Selling arms to Saudi Arabia:
Link
From The Daily Show:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT – Trump is replacing McMaster with John Bolton.
Jon Favreau: “This could be the single most dangerous move he’s made as president.”
“John Bolton strongly supported every war the US has fought, believes there should be no limits how US fights it’s wars, and strongly supports starting new regime change wars with Iran and nuclear-armed N. Korea.
Terrifying”
Daniel Drezner: “I’m not gonna sugarcoat this: we’re fucked.”
Drezner: “If you want to understand why I’m sounding so down on Bolton, it’s because I read ‘Surrender Is Not An Option’, his book on his time in the Bush administration. The pathologies on display in that text were… disturbing.”
“It’s Time to Panic Now”:
“EXCLUSIVE: ‘Lone DNC Hacker’ Guccifer 2.0 Slipped Up and Revealed He Was a Russian Intelligence Officer”:
Bolton is indeed hungry for war. He also spoke to Russians about gun rights and tried to push NRA propaganda into Russia.
What’s scary about Bolton is that he is smarter than Trump, and he writes well. He uses his relatively greater intelligence and his erudition (such as it is) to lead people like Trump into war. Bolton channels his intelligence into support for a very narrow, über conservative view of the world.
I think the Iran nuclear deal will be killed. Bolton will kill it. I think war with Iran is likely.
Bolton will also likely piggyback on existing trumpian love for Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to put further pressure on Qatar and Yemen. Same for Iran. Leaders in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have likened the Ayotallah of Iran to Hitler. Sounds like preparation/excuses for more war in the Middle East to me.
All the best people.
Just last week, Sarah Huckabee Sanders dissed the mainstream press for reports that McMaster may be on the way out. “No changes,” she said. She lied.
Conclusion, McMaster spoke too much truth so Trump ousted him. Team Trump didn’t even wait until after the meeting with North Korea. They didn’t wait until they could find a “soft landing” for McMaster, (like a 3- or 4-star general post that would not require him to retire from the military). Team Trump is reckless.
They did succeed in bumping Stormy Daniels off the front page.
Lynna, OM: They did succeed in bumping Stormy Daniels off the front page.
CNN: Hold my beer.
Just one more:
So Bolton:
– is connected to Torshin and Butina through the NRA, as Lynna noted
– wrote the foreword to a book by Pam Geller
– has close ties with the Mercers and Cambridge Analytica
– combed through intercepted communications of the IAEA head looking for compromising information to get him ousted.
I have a feeling (OK, hope) there might be something big coming in the Mueller investigation, possibly tomorrow. That could also explain the House Intel Republicans rush to shutter their investigation today.
“APNEWSALERT: Mother of teenage girl wounded in shooting at Maryland high school says she is being taken off of life support.”
Maddow is pointing out that both Tillerson and McMaster made strong public comments about Putin just before they were fired.
“Top Democrat on Armed Services @SenJackReed lays into Bolton: ‘A Republican Senate was unwilling to confirm him to a top post in the Bush Administration because he is a divisive ideologue with a history of politicizing intelligence and abusiveness toward subordinates’.”
Not sure why Maggie Haberman just retweeted this.
SC @463, maybe. I hope so. I also think that Mueller better hurry … more than he already is moving quickly. I agree with Rachel Maddow that Trump’s two new lawyers (Joseph diGenova and his wife) do not look like a team meant to do actual legal work. They look like a team hired to explain Trump’s actions on Fox News, using, of course, bogus legalese. Trump’s PR strategy.
We might see diGenova explaining on Fox News why Trump fired Rosenstein, etc. etc. He already has down pat the patter about how Mueller is part of a deep state conspiracy to charge Trump with a crime he didn’t commit.
Also, Bolton is going to be like a shot of steroids to Trump’s bullying, bloviating nature. Maybe Mueller can bring forward some new information before Bolton talks Trump into blowing up the entire planet with multiple nuclear wars.
Not surprised to hear from Maddow that Bolton has a history of harassing women, including making derogatory comments about their looks, their weight, and their supposed lesbianism.
And tomorrow, off to Mar-a-Lago. I wonder how Melania can stand the sight of him.
Bolton is an anti-Islam fanatic. He hangs out with Frank Gaffney. Bolton promoted the conspiracy theory that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
I think SC mentioned Pamela Geller in an earlier comment. More anti-Islam connections for Bolton.
“Quietly last night, Pres Trump delayed imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada, Mexico and the nations of the European Union. Also Australia & South Korea. Tariffs suspended until May 1 and may be exempted based on negotiations.”
Smoke and mirrors.
Yesterday’s tweet o’ the day.
Update to #472 – Argentina and Brazil, too. LOL.
Trump is now threatening to veto the spending bill. With Mueller closing in, the March for Our Lives tomorrow, the Stormy Daniels interview on Sunday, leaks and defections, pressure for real Russia sanctions – he’s going to pull every rabbit out of the hat to distract and confuse.
At 10 AM ET Rosenstein and other law enforcement officials are doing a press conference on a “major cyber law enforcement announcement.”
Re #475 – Matt Yglesias points out that “They sent out a Statement of Administration Policy yesterday outlining all the reasons the White House supports the bill.”
Robert Costa: “a person very close to the president tells me he’s in the mood to ‘roll people’, see how they react, whether it’s his staff or congressional Republican leaders. He’s tired of being told he’s winning by earnest GOP types, all as newspapers and TV networks are focused on scandal.”
I keep seeing these claims about impending Russia sanctions. With their track record, everyone should wait for the sanctions not only to be announced but actually implemented.
Update to #476 – the DoJ is indicting 9 people connected to something called the Mabna Institute, a hacking operation working for the Iranian government that targeted universities, NGOs, US government agencies, and the UN and stole a huge amount of information.
“Like a fine bad take wine.”
Another piece about the Kogan/FB relationship described @ #429 – “Facebook had a closer relationship than it disclosed with the academic it called a liar”:
Everything about this reeks.
What the hell is this about? Is his wife’s name Spectre?
Yes, I would think so.
“EU recalls ambassador from Russia as leaders back May over Salisbury”:
More on Bolton and CA – “Bolton Was Early Beneficiary of Cambridge Analytica’s Facebook Data”:
“Cambridge Analytica is fighting a warrant and transferring assets to new company: Channel 4 report.”
Yer Mum!
Daily Beast link
Bill Browder: “BREAKING: Estonian government to sanction 49 Russian officials responsible for the torture and murder of Sergei Magnitsky under the Estonian Magnitsky Act.”
Follow-up to SC’s comment 462.
I just wanted to emphasize that it was Russian intelligence that set Bolton up to partner with the NRA.
In other news that is sort of related to the NRA, more than 800 cities will join the March for Our Lives demonstrations on Saturday.
Link.
From Ezra Klein:
Chris Hayes: “I’m not one for the Trump Master PR Strategist theory, but the last two days do feel like fairly obvious and desperate attempts to change the subject.”
I recall that Mattis is known as “Mad Dog”. He is now clearly the most rational of Trump’s foreign policy and national security team.
“Cambridge Analytica misled MPs over work for Leave.EU, says ex-director”:
This was my exact thought, and now I’m concerned because Ann Coulter had it, too. Gross.
VoteVets:
“For the love of all things holy, can SOMEONE tell @POTUS @realDonaldTrump that stealth planes are not invisible?
He just claimed they are, for the second time, in 2 days.”
The first time, he also called Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson “Marillyn Lockheed,” putting the emphasis on the “heed.”
Holy Fuck (from CNN):
He really does not understand, in any way, shape or form, how government works. So many federal programmes and agencies are operating without senior officials, politial appointees, that the agencies and programmes are basically operating on inertia. The professionals, the beaurocrats (who ennact policy and act on decisions), are left with no policies and no decisions so we just keep doing what we have been doing in the past. Which works for a while.
Then again, considering the calibre of Trump appointees, maybe inertia is the best we can hope for.
I thought Vladimir Kara-Murza’s PutinCon talk was the best of those I watched. You can see it here – begins at about 5:45 in.
It’s no small source of concern for me how little attention so many democracy activists appear to pay to capitalism, especially given the history of Russia and the shock therapy of the 1990s. It’s a serious problem.
Owen Smith: “Just been sacked by @jeremycorbyn for my long held views on the damage #Brexit will do to the Good Friday Agreement & the economy of the entire U.K. Those views are shared by Labour members & supporters and I will continue to speak up for them, and in the interest of our country.”
More here: “Owen Smith sacked from Labour party frontbench.”
“Joshua Kushner Met with Government of Qatar to Discuss Financing in the Same Week Father Charles Kushner Did”: “Joshua Kushner, a venture capitalist and the younger brother of White House adviser Jared Kushner, met with Qatari Finance Minister Ali Sharif Al Emadi the same week as his father, Charles Kushner did last April 2017, in an independent effort to discuss potential investments from the Qatari government. Both meetings took place at Al Emadi’s St. Regis Hotel suite in Manhattan….”
From Wonkette’s coverage of the appointment of John Bolton:
Follow-up to SC’s comments 475 and 493.
Trump huffed and puffed and then he signed the omnibus funding bill.
Just a few of the things Trump said before he signed the bill:
– “we had no choice but to fund our military”
– “I will never sign another bill like this again.”
– he recommended eliminating the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate
– he asked for a line-item veto
– he said that Democrats didn’t want to protect DACA beneficiaries.